Blood and Darkness
by Chaos Mist
Summary: Some of Sonic's friends have become vampires and Sonic, Tails, and Shadow are going to find out why. SonAmy, KnuxTikal, ShadRouge, OCxOC. Rated for mild language and scary parts. Complete!
1. The Secret Room

This is still the same Sonic / vampire fanfic. I just changed the name. I think the original title sounds kind of stupid. But enough of that. I just have a few things to say to any new readers.

First of all, I'm not going to bother with any descriptions except for my characters and changes in outfits. Also the story is narrated by two characters, so you can see things from their points of view.

And one more thing – If you're going to review, please no flaming. I respect your honesty and am willing to listen to your opinions, but try not to be rude.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, and Tikal are © SEGA / Sonicteam.

All the other characters are mine and can not be used in anything without my permission.

**Blood and Darkness**

It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining brightly and there were hardly any clouds in the sky. I could feel the wind softly blowing on my face and through my dreadlock spines as I sat on the steps of the altar where I guarded the Master Emerald on Angel Island. It's hard to believe that something really freaky could happen on such a perfect day. I was just lying around on one of the stone steps of the emerald altar thinking that nothing could be better than that.

Then, I started to think about that girl called Tikal. I couldn't understand why I would be thinking about her. It's true that we were the only echidnas left in the world and we came from the same people, but we were from different time periods. I was the sole descendant of the tribe while she was the daughter of the tribe's leader, that was sealed in the Master Emerald for many centuries. She was somehow freed from the emerald and brought into this  
time period.

I kept asking myself why I thought about her. We were complete opposites. I was a born fighter and she was a pacifist. Not only that. I was also very shy around girls. I wasn't that way around Rouge, but that's because she was always trying to steal the Master Emerald.

As I sat on the steps of the altar with thoughts of Tikal in my head, I decided to go down to the hidden palace under the surface of the island. The palace was more like a large tunnel decorated with tapestries and murals from centuries ago. Once it was where the Master Emerald was kept. But after the first time that it was stolen, I moved it to the ancient altar on the island's surface.

Wandering around the hidden palace didn't really take my mind off of Tikal. Looking at the decorations and the other altar where the Master Emerald used to be made getting rid of the thoughts impossible. I heaved a heavy sigh as the images of the echidna girl started to fill me with discouragement.

Just as I was about to head back up to the surface, I saw something in the old emerald room that I never noticed before. It was a boulder that looked kind of loose. I used my strength to push it aside so I could see what was behind it. There was another tunnel that seemed to go farther under the surface. I certainly hoped that it wasn't so much farther under the surface that it went to the very bottom of the island.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check it out. I had lived on Angel Island all of my life. I knew all the shortcuts and passages, but this was very new to me. Maybe it was another place where sacred things were kept. I started to walk cautiously down the cold, dark tunnel. My people were very secretive, so they could've sent booby traps there.

When I reached the end of the tunnel, I found myself in a strange room. It looked much more advanced than the other ones did. I saw computers and odd walls with what looked like veins that for some reason lit up the room.

_How strange_, I thought.

As I turned to the right side of the room, I saw another wall that seemed to hold some kind of stasis tubes inside it. Only two of them that were next to each other looked occupied. I went to the one on the left and tried to pull it out. It wouldn't even budge. When I looked at it, I saw that there was a similarly shaped type of steel door in front of it. The door had a keyhole in it. Someone had locked up the stasis tube, so I couldn't get to it without the key. There were no drawers, hooks, or even any openings in the walls or floor of the room. Wherever the key was, it would probably take me forever to find it.

I went to the stasis tube on the right and pulled it out. I was shocked when I saw what was in it. It was another echidna! He had charcoal gray fur and his muzzle was the same dark beige color as mine. He wore a dark blue sleeveless jacket that went just a little bit past the black belt around his waist. On his feet were boots that were the same color as his belt and had rims around them like Rouge's did. They were secured to his feet with blue belts that matched his jacket. One belt went around his foot like Sonic's, but had the buckle inbetween. And the other went around an inch from his ankle. He had mittens just like mine, but both of them each had a belt that was just like the ones around his boots, which was wrapped around the rims like Tails's were.

Excitement had welled up inside of me. There was another echidna on the island! I finally had somebody that I could relate to and share the island's secrets with. I opened up the tube and waited for the dark gray echidna to awaken. After a few seconds, he opened his cobalt blue eyes, stood up in the stasis tube, and looked  
at me.

"Hi, I'm Knuckles," I said to him. "I'm the guardian of this island. What's your name?"

When I looked at his eyes, I thought there was something creepy about them. They seemed dark and lifeless. He couldn't have been a robot. No robot had eyes like that.

Suddenly, the other echidna lunged at me, grabbed me, and bit into my neck. I screamed in pain as his unusually sharp teeth punctured my skin, causing me to bleed. Then, it felt like he was sucking the red fluid flowing from me. I used my strength to wrench his mouth away from me and ran full speed through the tunnel and back to the emerald room.

Just as I was going to push the boulder back into place, I started to feel this terrible pain all over my body. I had to sit down because I was so nauseous that I was very weak. I breathed heavily for a minute, thinking that I would probably hurl. Then, I felt a hand on my right shoulder. I knew that it was the other echidna.

"Stay away from me!" I shouted before I started to run back to the surface of the island.

"No! Wait!" he called out to me.

I didn't stop. I just kept running until I saw the sunlight from the opening that led to the surface. When I finally made it outside, it felt like my body was on fire. I went back into the shade inside the tunnel, clutching myself and hissing from the pain.

_How did that happen?_ I thought.

I put my arm out into the sunlight and felt the burning return. When I pulled my arm back into the shade, the pain stopped again. I couldn't go out into the sunlight! Why? What had that echidna done to me? I tried to feel the place on my neck where he had bit me, but I couldn't find it. It's like it  
never happened!

"Knuckles," I heard him say as he walked up to me.

"What have you done to me?" I asked him.

He looked at me with a sad expression on his face that made him look like he was almost on the verge of crying.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to? You bit me so hard on the neck, I started bleeding!"

"I was so thirsty. I...I didn't know this would happen. It never happened before."

"If you were thirsty, you should've waited for me to bring you some water. Instead you bit my neck and drank my blood!"

"You don't understand. I needed blood."

Now I was confused. "What do you mean?"

"I can't drink water. I can only drink blood. Without it, I can't survive."

The other echidna wasn't making any sense. "Who are you?"

"My name is Typhoon. I've been on this island for many decades, but I've really been around for almost a millennium."

I couldn't believe it! "But, that's not possible. They didn't have stasis tubes back then."

"I didn't survive all this time by living in a stasis tube, Knuckles," he told me. "I never needed one. I was only in that stasis tube because I had put myself in there."

"Why would you put yourself in a stasis tube and how exactly could you do that all by yourself?" I asked.

Typhoon wouldn't tell me the reason, whatever it was. I wasn't going to get anything else from him about where he came from or why he had himself put into hibernation. There was nothing I could do until the sun went down. I went back down the tunnel to the hidden palace and into the emerald room where I had felt that strange pain after Typhoon had bit me.

While looking at the stone altar in the middle of the room, I tried to think of a way to get me back to normal. I was certain that Typhoon wasn't going to help me. Sonic might though. He always was the kind of guy who would help anybody who needed it. Maybe he could help me get back to my original self. I decided that I would go and talk to him after sunset.

As I stood in the room, I started to feel weak again. Some of my blood had been drained and I couldn't go outside to eat anything until nightfall. I had to lie down on the stone floor and rest for a while. I was so tired that I began to close my eyes.

"Knuckles?"

When I heard my name, I opened my eyes again to see Typhoon standing above me. But, I was exhausted from everything that happened, that I only had them open for a few seconds. The image of the dark gray echidna was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I actually wanted to start the story with Sonic, but his first narration happens a little afterwards. And there is something else that I want to clear up.  
None of the characters are gay.


	2. A Night to Remember

Well, you readers said that you wanted me to continue ASAP. So, here is the next chapter.

I headed towards the door as the sun's final rays disappeared behind the mountains. My friend, Tails and I had plans to go to the arcade that night. I was going to beat him at that pinball game again.

Just as I stepped outside, I heard a familiar voice call out, "Sonic!"

I turned around to see that pink hedgehog, Amy, running towards me. She was always following me and wanting to hang out with me. Having her around all the time was very annoying for me. It's not that I don't like her. I just need my space. When she caught up to me, she stared at me with her mouth agape and her emerald green eyes filled with wonder.

"Hey, Sonic," she said to me. "Where are you going?"

_Oh no_, I thought feeling a bead of sweat dropping down from my head. _Is she going to ask me if she can come along after I tell her?_

"Oh, I'm just going somewhere for a while with Tails," I told her.

"Can I come?"

_Crap!_ I thought. _How did I know she was going to say that? Probably because she always asks that question._

Before I could give her an answer, a voice not too far away called out, "Sonic, come on!"

I already knew who it belonged to before I turned my head to their direction. It was my friend, Tails. He called out to me again.

"Sonic, let's go!"

I turned my attention back to Amy.

"Look, Amy," I said to her, "This is kind of more of a guy thing. It was supposed to be just me and Tails."

She gave me a disappointed look and said, "Sure, Sonic. I understand."

Her tone sounded kind of hurt by my words. I looked at her for a while before Tails called out my name again.

"Well," I finally said to Amy, "I'll see ya."

I turned away from her and ran to join Tails.

"I'm going to beat you on that pinball game," he said to me.

"I don't think so Tails," I told him. "I'm an expert at that game."

"Yeah, I'm not surprised. You're usually the ball."

We both laughed about that. Then, the two of us sped downtown towards the arcade, blissfully unaware of the events that were going to take place that evening. I had no idea about what would happen that very night and how it would affect me. All I do know is that it would change my life forever.

(Knuckles)

I was in what looked like some sort of battlefield. There were echidnas running all over, shouting battle cries. At first, I thought I was in a city that my people had taken over. But, the echidnas didn't have any war paint on them and they had swords instead of spears for weapons. The area was rocky like it was near mountains and the vegetation in it looked more temperate than tropical.

As I fought like my only purpose in the world was just to kill, I heard the dying cry of one of the warriors nearby. Even though I didn't recognize the voice, I ran over to the spot where the young echidna that made the sound had fallen. I put my mitten-covered hand on his face, but there was no movement. I could feel tears filling my eyes as I began to cry while speaking the name of the fallen warrior. But I sounded more like Typhoon when I spoke. How did I know the warrior's name? I had never seen him before. And why did my voice sound more like Typhoon's?

I continued to cry like a child while holding the echidna's body in my arms. But instead of my arms being red, they were dark gray just like Typhoon's were. What was going on? Was I in Typhoon's body? Was the dead echidna that I was holding and crying over someone  
he knew?

Suddenly, I felt something sharp go through my chest. I cried out in pain as I let go of the body in my arms and held myself in the hurt area. But it didn't really sound like my voice when I cried out. I knew then that I was going to die. The weakness in my body caused me to lie down on the ground, waiting to join the other echidna in death. As I did, I saw a silhouetted figure in the distance. It appeared to be wearing a hooded cloak and was beginning to walk towards me. I began to close my eyes as the figure kept moving closer to me with every step.

"Knuckles! Knuckles!"

I opened my eyes while feeling some kind of wobbling movement. Typhoon was slightly shaking my shoulder with his hand, trying to awaken me from the strange sleep I had. I was hoping that what he did to me was just a horrible dream. I yawned before I asked him why he woke me up.

"The sun went down," he told me. "We can go outside now."

When Typhoon said that, I remembered that I had to see Sonic right away. I sat up and stretched my arms before standing up on my legs and walking out to the surface of the island. The sky was dark violet with bright stars and a full moon. There wasn't a single cloud in sight. Typhoon and I walked to the edge of the island, leaped off of it, and started to glide through the moonlit sky. How was _he_ able to glide? No echidna could do that without having a connection to the Master Emerald and I was pretty sure that he didn't even know about it.

Not long after take-off, I started to feel kind of dizzy. I put my hand on my head like I had a headache. I had never felt that way while gliding before. Then, I remembered that Typhoon had drunk some of my blood. I wondered how much of it did he have. Did he drink most of it? Was that why I was feeling woozy?

"Knuckles," Typhoon said to me. "Are you okay? You seem weak."

_Weak? _I thought. _I'm anything but weak!_

He was right though because I suddenly lost control of my body. It was like it had just shut down for no reason. Without being able to glide, I started to plummet to the ground far below. Typhoon called out to me as I continued to fall, feeling the wind rush through my spines. I thought that I would fall to my death. As I was falling, my body started to feel unusually cold. It was like a blast of icy air coming up from the land. Never in my life have I felt so cold falling from the sky like that. Then, the wind stopped and I felt something grasping my body. I opened my eyes and saw Typhoon holding me around my waist as he glided us both down to the surface.

As soon as our feet fully touched the ground, I tried to move away in order to go look for Sonic. But Typhoon wouldn't let me. He was gripping me as if I was a child that wanted to wander off. I tried as hard as I could to get free of his grasp, but he held me tightly. He didn't want me to leave, but I had to. I had to see Sonic.

"Typhoon," I said to the dark gray echidna while trying to break free of his grip, "Let me go!"

"No! You're too weak!"

_I'll show you weak!_ I thought.

I took my left hand and punched him with full force in the jaw. Typhoon released his grip on me and used his hands to hold the part of his mouth where I hit him. As soon as he did, I dashed into the nearby woods, stumbling every few steps because of my weakened body. After about a half a mile, I had to rest for a little while. I panted heavily as I sat underneath a tree, waiting for my strength to return. Not too far away, I could hear Typhoon calling for me to come back.

_Why does he even care?_ I thought.

A few seconds had passed before I realized that I was thirsty. I wished that there was a lake nearby for me to drink from. Heck, I was probably so thirsty that I thought I could have drunk the whole thing! Just then, I heard the sound of someone walking close by. At first, I thought it was Typhoon. But when I saw the figure, I realized that it was somebody else. Amy Rose ; the pink hedgehog that was always chasing after Sonic.

"Oh, why does he always do this?" she said with a little annoyance in her voice. She must've been talking about Sonic. Maybe she knew where he was. I started to stand up and walk over to her.

"Amy!"

"Huh? Who's there?"

I guess she didn't recognize me until I stepped into the moonlight a few inches from her.

"Oh, Knuckles. It's you. I thought you were a stranger."

I didn't want to rush her, but doing that was crucial at the moment. "Amy, do you know where Sonic is? I have to see him right away."

"Why? Why do you..."

She stopped talking all of a sudden. Then, she started trembling like a little girl who just came across a stranger. Why was she acting so afraid? Did she see Typhoon walking by?

Suddenly, a strange feeling came over me. I started moving closer to Amy until I was right in front of her. Now she looked petrified.

"Kn-Knuckles? W-why are y-you loo-looking at m-me l-like th-that?" Her voice was shaky like it would've been in the middle of  
an earthquake.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and sank my teeth into her throat. Then, I drank the blood from it. I was so thirsty that I couldn't stop drinking it. Amy let out an ear-shattering scream before she fell limp to the ground. When she did, I looked at her in shock. She was breathing really hard. There was still the taste of her blood in my mouth as I continued to look at her. I couldn't believe what I had just done! What was wrong with me? What was I turning into?

_Typhoon, what have you done to me?_ I couldn't help screaming the question in my head.

I ran off further into the woods. My strength had miraculously returned to me after sucking the blood from Amy. I couldn't handle what had happened! I just couldn't! The trees and shrubs became blurry as I sped through the woods, unable to even look at myself.

Hope you liked this chapter. If not, you may like the next one.


	3. Unquenchable Thirst

Sorry I'm late for updating.

A couple of hours had passed. I must have been deep in thought because the next thing I knew, Tails was repeatedly calling my name.

"Sonic!" he yelled.

That brought me out of my trance and sent me back to reality where the both of us were walking from the arcade.

"What?" I said. "You don't have to scream in my ear! I'm not deaf!"

"I've been trying to talk to you for almost a minute and you never responded," he explained.

"Well, you have my attention now. What is it?"

"I think you cheated on the pinball game."

"Oh, come on, Tails," I said to him. "You're not going to be a sore loser are you?"

Just then, we both heard a horrible scream.

"What was that?" Tails asked.

"That sounded like Amy," I said.

The kid's eyes were now filled with concern.

"Do you think that she's hurt?" he asked me.

"I don't know."

_I hope not_, I thought.

I grabbed his right hand and sped us both to the location of the scream. After a couple of blocks, we found the exact spot. I screeched my feet to a halt and released Tails's hand. We were both horrified at the sight before us. There was a pink female hedgehog lying on the ground. When I rushed over to look at the hedgehog, I was horrified. It _was_ Amy.

I couldn't believe it! Why was Amy lying on the ground like that? Did somebody attack her? I started to feel regret come over me like a huge storm cloud. I told her I didn't want her hanging out with me and now I had felt terrible for saying that.

I put my hand on her shoulder and shook it, trying to wake her up.

"Amy, are you okay?"

After a couple of seconds, she finally opened her eyes. I was relieved that she was still alive. But when I saw those emerald green eyes of hers, fear struck me like lightning. I just stood there staring at her like I had been turned to stone. Her eyes were now white balls with green circles where I could see nothing but an endless darkness inside them.

Amy stood up and gazed at me with those dark eyes of hers.

"Sonic, You're back! Do you want to do something with me now?"

"Amy, what's wrong with your eyes?" I asked her with a hint of nervousness in my tone.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" She sounded kind of angry with me for saying that. "All of a sudden, you don't think my eyes are pretty? How long how you been staring at the bright lights from those arcade games? You don't think my eyes are pretty, Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Amy, it's not that. It's just.."

Before I could finish, Amy started to move closer to me. She looked at me with some kind of lust in her shadowy eyes and walked dangerously slow towards me. Now I was completely petrified.

"Amy, what are you doing?"

Just then, she darted towards me at a speed that would almost put me to shame. If I didn't have my speed, I wouldn't have been able to dash out of the way at the last second. There was definitely something wrong with her. I know she was always chasing after me and trying to get close to me, but she would never try to do something like that. Not even if she was having a bad day.

Amy turned back in my direction with the same lustful look in her eyes. I knew she was going to do it again and the look in her eyes and the way she held out her hands in what looked like a strangling position told me she intended to try to kill me.

I turned to back to Tails and said, "Run!"

I dashed in a direction with my little fox buddy close behind me, twirling his tails like a propeller on a helicopter. I never ran away like a coward before, but the darkness in Amy's eyes and that unusual speed of hers had my natural alarm sounding, "danger!" Whatever happened to Amy, was something very unearthly. I was going to find out what happened to her and _whoever_ did do it to her was not going to get away with it!

(Knuckles)

I had lost track of how long I had being running for or how far I had gone. What I had done to Amy was unforgivable! I eventually stopped by a tree and let myself rest on it. The horrible images kept showing up in my head. Amy screaming. Falling. Laying limp on the ground. How would I ever be able to live with myself?

Those thoughts continued to haunt me so much, I couldn't keep my sorrow inside any longer. I could feel tears starting to flood my eyes. As hard as I tried to fight them, my sorrow was too overwhelming. I crossed my arms on the tree and let my head rest on them like they were pillows. Then, I closed my eyes and let the tears in them flow down my muzzle and drip onto the grass below.

_You're acting like a child, _I scolded myself._ You shouldn't be doing that!_

But I was too upset to even care. What if Amy was dead? What if drinking all that blood had killed her? Was her breathing a sign that she only had a few minutes to live? Thinking that made my eyes watery again and I let the newly made tears trickle down my face and plummet to the ground.

"Why are you crying?"

When I heard that familiar voice, I turned my head to the right and saw Typhoon standing a few inches away from me with a sympathetic look on his face. When I saw him, I used my hands to wipe away evidence of the tears. Then, I stood in his direction and looked him in the eyes.

"I'm not crying!" I told him scornfully. "What do you want?"

"Well, first of all, this!"

I saw him lift his right arm and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with a throbbing pain in my cheek. I rubbed the sore area to soothe it as I looked up at the dark gray echidna who held up his arm with a clenched fist. Even through that eerie darkness in his eyes, I could see anger in them. I started to feel rage welling up inside me as I stood myself up.

"Why did you hit me?" I asked him with the fury being noticeable in my voice.

"You hit me first. Remember?"

"I didn't have a choice. You wouldn't let me go."

"I told you you were too weak."

Now I had reached the peak of my rage.

"I am not weak!"

I turned away from Typhoon and started to walk away from him. But as soon as I did, that feeling I had before I bit Amy came back.

_No, not again! Leave me alone!_ I said to the feeling like it could understand me.

But it was useless. The thirst I had was too strong. I grabbed the tree with both of my hands and bit into the bark, trying to sink my teeth into it. I wasn't going to let myself attack anybody like I did to Amy. I wouldn't do it.

Typhoon walked up to me and placed his hand on my arm, trying to pull me away from the tree.

"Come with me," he said.

"No!" I told him. "Leave me here!"

Suddenly, Typhoon wrapped his arms around my waist and wrenched me from the tree. Then, he grabbed both of my wrists and held them behind my back like I was a criminal in handcuffs. I struggled to get lose, but he held my wrists tight.

"You're going to act like a child, I'm going to treat you like one," he said to me.

The dark gray echidna let go of my wrists. Then, he wrapped his arms around my waist again before lifting us both off of the ground and into the sky. How was he able to do that? We continued to fly until the woods had disappeared and there was nothing but the bright lights of the city below us. As soon as we were over an alley, Typhoon started to descend from the sky. When we landed, he left me to lay in the corner.

"Stay here," he told me.

Oh, right! Like I was really going to listen to him? I stood up and used the spurs on the back of my hands to climb up the nearby building.

Typhoon was on the sidewalk outside of the alley, looking through the streets for something. After scanning them for a few seconds, he turned back towards the alley and saw me climbing up the building.

"What are you doing?" he asked me.

_Trying to get away from you,_ I thought as I continued to scale the brick structure. _Duh!_

From out of nowhere, I felt a strange blast of energy surge through my body. I tried to move my arms, but they wouldn't budge. Why couldn't I move? As I wondered about that, Typhoon pulled me from the building and lay me back on the cold, filthy ground below.

"I just paralyzed you," he said to me. "You'll be unable to move for a short while."

He walked out of the alley and back to the sidewalk, to continue scanning for whatever he was looking for. As he left me alone in the dark alley again, I couldn't help thinking about what he said. 'I just paralyzed you.' No echidna could do that! Typhoon was no ordinary echidna. What was he? And why did he keep treating me this way? Was he ever going to let me go? Or was he planning to keep me as a prisoner forever?

For the first time in my life, I felt completely helpless. I was at this other echidna's mercy. I started to wish that I had never awakened him. The excitement of having another echidna on the island had blinded me. What an idiot I was! Now I was some kind of blood-drinking monster that couldn't go out into the sunlight again.

_Somebody help me._

The next chapter is going to be more exciting.


	4. Fight on the Beach!

Here is the next chapter. Sorry I took a while to update. I really wanted this to be up before Halloween.

"Sonic! Sonic!"

"What is it Tails?" I asked the double tailed fox following close behind me as I continued running full speed through the bright lighted streets of the city.

"I don't see Amy anywhere. Maybe we lost her."

"With that speed? I wouldn't bet on it."

I couldn't stop thinking about the way Amy was able to dash at that speed. She was a little faster than most of the others, but she was not nearly as fast as I am. I started to wonder if it really was Amy at all. Her eyes were very dark and lifeless. What if it was just some kind of clone? If that was true, who would make a clone of her and why?

As I thought about that, Tails and I heard a scream just like the one that Amy (or was it a clone?) had made. But, the voice was deep and masculine. We both skidded our feet to a halt when we heard the scream.

"What was that?" Tails asked me.

"I don't know, Tails," I replied. "But it sounds like we might be able to find out what's going on."

We headed in the direction the scream had come from and stopped at the entrance of an alley. The sight was very disturbing. In the left hand corner, we saw a man laying limp in the arms of what looked like a dark gray echidna. The echidna was forcing a red echidna to suck on the man's neck. When Tails and I went to get a closer look at the red echidna, we recognized the white crescent mark on his chest and the red and yellow shoes with green socks on his feet. It was Knuckles!

I couldn't believe it! Knuckles would never do that. Who was the other echidna he was with? And why was he making Knuckles do this? I had to get some answers right away.

I ran towards the two echidnas and pulled the man free from Knuckles's mouth. There was smeared blood around the two teeth marks on his neck. I laid him down on the ground and decided to check him to see if he was okay. I couldn't feel a pulse or hear him breathing. He was dead.

"What the..." I muttered under my breath. What did Knuckles just do to that man? As I wondered about that, a felt something firmly grip me from behind and lift me off the ground. I was held in mid-air a few inches from the filthy ground below. The figure turned me around, holding me by the chest so I could see who it was. It was the gray echidna who forced Knuckles to suck on the man's neck. He looked at me with anger in his eerie dark eyes and his mouth had formed into a sneer. I struggled to get free, but it was no use.

"How dare you interrupt us, hedgehog!" he said to me with fury in his tone. "I'm going to have to take care of you once and for all!"

He lifted us both up higher and higher into the sky until the vehicles below us looked more like toy cars. Then, he threw me down to the streets down below.

_What an idiot!_ I thought. _I can survive a fall like this._

That's what I thought until I felt some powerful energy blast my body. When that happened, I realized I couldn't move. The wind screamed in my ears as I continued to plummet helplessly to the ground. Right before I was about to hit the pavement, Tails caught my arms with both of his hands and landed me safely on the surface.

"Thanks, Tails," I said to my savior. He nodded his head once as a way of saying "you're welcome."

"Sonic!"

Tails and I turned around to see Knuckles stand up and move toward us. Judging by the look on his face, he was happy to see me. Oh boy. This is a first!

"Sonic, I'm so glad I found you. You have to help me."

As I looked at his face, I noticed his eyes had the same creepy darkness in them that the Amy clone and that other echidna had.

"No," I said while shaking my head in disbelief and slowly stepping away from the red echidna. "No. I don't believe it. I don't believe it!"

Amy had a clone and now Knuckles had one too? How many more of my friends had clones of themselves? I couldn't let anybody else get hurt or killed like that man. My sudden concern for the citizens must have somehow cured my body, because I was able to move again.

"You want to talk to me, you're going to have to catch me!"

I grabbed Tails's hand and sped us both down the streets.

When I looked back, I saw the Knuckles clone chasing after us at the same speed that the clone of Amy had. Every few seconds, he was getting closer to us by an inch.

"Sonic, wait!" he called out to me. He sounded awfully desperate. Awfully desperate to kill me!

"Sonic, look out!" I heard Tails say.

I should have listened to him and watched where I was going because I had just crashed into something. I groaned from the pain as I turned my head to see what obstacle that seemed like it came from out of nowhere had stopped me from running. It was a palm tree. Not too far away, I heard the roaring of waves. I looked in the direction it came from and saw the dark blueness of the ocean. I grabbed a handful of the slightly soft ground and watched sand fall from my palm like it would in an hourglass. Sand. The ocean. That could only mean that we were at the beach.

When I looked back towards the city, I saw the Knuckles clone not too far behind. He was really determined to get me. How did Knuckles get cloned? Did that other echidna I saw have something to do with it? I put my arm out to shield Tails as the red echidna moved closer to us. Now that there wasn't a single innocent person to worry about him hurting or killing, it was time for me to fight him.

(Knuckles)

Sonic just wouldn't stop running. One look at my face and he started to run full speed like he was trying to outrun a rock slide. What was his problem? All I wanted was for him to help me. I wasn't interested in picking a fight with him. Why would he freak out like that?

I started to chase after him. Despite the pedestrians and vehicles, I seemed to be gaining on him. How was I able to run that fast? I could never do it before. It must have been another one of those things that I inherited after being bit by Typhoon.

Sonic had finally stopped running after unknowingly hitting a palm tree. I would have laughed about it, but all that mattered to me at the time was catching up to him. I wanted this nightmare to end!

When I caught up to him, the blue hedgehog had put his arm out protectively in front of Tails. I stopped running and looked back towards the city. I didn't see Typhoon anywhere. Why was Sonic acting this way? I had no time to ask him that. I started to walk over to him.

"All right you! Who are you and why do you look like Knuckles?"

I was taken aback by that. "Sonic, what are you talking about? It's really me. I need to talk to you."

He stood there glaring at me like I was trying to attack him.

"Like the same way you wanted to talk to that man you killed?" he asked me angrily. ""You're not going to get away with this, clone!"

I couldn't believe what I had just heard! He thought that I was a clone? I continued to move closer until I was right in front of him.

"Sonic, please."

Before I could say anything more, he took his right leg and gave me a kick in my jaw. After I rubbed the area where he hit me, I had lost my patience with the blue hedgehog. Anger welled up inside of me as I put up my clenched fists in a fighting position.

"That does it hedgehog," I snarled. "No more time for games!"

Sonic pushed Tails out of harm's way and stood his ground as he waited for our battle to begin. I dashed towards him trying to land him a blow, but he darted out of the way before I could even get close to him. Then he charged at me.

"Take this!"

While he said that, he spun around me at full speed creating one of his mini whirlwinds. The vortex was twirling me around with all the sand it picked up and sent me into the air. I put out my fists and dove under the sand. Sonic had no idea where I was, but I knew where he was. I tunneled through the sand until I was underneath him. Then, I put one of my fists up as I resurfaced, sending the unaware hedgehog flying. He began to charge at me again, becoming a streak of blue light in mid-air.

Suddenly, some strange green energy had shot Sonic from out of nowhere. He cried out in pain as the blast sent him hurtling towards the sandy ground, landing on his belly.

"Sonic!"

After Tails had called out to his fallen comrade, he rushed to his aid. When he did, another blast of energy struck him, causing him to collapse on the sand  
as well.

When Sonic tried to get up, he cried out again and just let himself lay there. The blast must have hurt him so badly that he couldn't move without feeling any pain. I looked in the direction the energy came from and saw the familiar form of Typhoon with the palm of his right hand out. He put his hand down and began to walk over to us ; his angry dark blue eyes fixed on Sonic.

"You've stood in our way for too long, hedgehog!" he said to him glaring. "I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place!" As he got closer, I could see that his face had the look that said, "I'm going to kill you!"

Typhoon was going to kill Sonic! I had to stop him! I ran up to the angry dark gray echidna and put myself between him and the helpless hedgehog. Then, I placed my hands in front of him, trying to keep him from going near his target. Knowing a little about the way the mysterious echidna had acted towards me, I thought that he could be reasoned with.

"Typhoon, no! Don't kill him!"

"Get out of my way, Knuckles!"

"No! I won't let you kill him!"

"Fine!"

He put the palm of his right hand out in front of me and blasted me with the same energy he shot Sonic and Tails with, causing me to be sent slamming into a palm tree. For a second I felt a great pain all over my body. Then, everything went black.

End of Chapter Four.


	5. Shadow to the Rescue!

Here is Chapter Five. I've taken so long to update this story.

I groaned from the pain as I watched the dark gray echidna move dangerously closer to me while I laid helplessly on the ground. From my left, I could see my little buddy Tails lying unconscious on the sand. Poor kid. I wanted so badly to beat the crap out of his attacker for hurting him! A few feet from behind the echidna, I saw that immobile clone of Knuckles laying against the palm tree, looking like he was sleeping. Was he dead? Did the blast kill him?

While I wondered that, the dark-eyed echidna kept walking closer to me with every step. I tried to stand up, but my effort to get up was futile. The energy blast had weakened my legs too much. They were in a world of pain! The dark gray echidna stood in front of me as he raised his left hand up into the air. An eerie green glow that was the same color as the energy blast he shot us with began forming into a ball in his palm. The energy ball continued to get bigger and bigger, creating a strange wind that caused the echidna's jacket and spines to flap in it. The ball kept on getting larger until it looked like it was big enough to swallow me.

"I've had enough of you! Say goodbye to this world, hedgehog!"

_This is it,_ I thought as I closed my eyes, awaiting my death. _It's all over._

Just then, I heard the echidna cry out as if from pain. When I opened my eyes, I saw him holding his wrist like it was hurting. He turned his gaze from it to something behind him. When I looked in the same direction he did, I saw what had hurt him. Standing not too far behind him was Shadow with a laser gun in his left hand. He was wearing a black belt around his waist that almost matched the blackness of his fur. The belt had a holster attached to it on his  
left side.

The echidna decided to forget about me and started focusing on the red-striped hedgehog that had just fired at him. He charged at him the same way Knuckles would have using his fists. What is it with echidnas and charging at their targets with their fists? Shadow jumped out of the way before the dark gray echidna could even get close to him. Then, he began to spin, turning into a spiny black and red ball in mid-air. He targeted the echidna like a homing missile and knocked him to the ground. The fallen echidna used his hands to lift himself up. As soon as he did, he took his hand and tried to blast his attacker like he did to us.

When Shadow saw what he was planning to do, he clenched fists and cried out "Chaos Control!"

In a huge flash of light, the jet black hedgehog had vanished from the beach like he was never there. The perplexed echidna just stood there, staring at the spot where his foe was before disappearing. He quickly turned around and back, scanning the beach for Shadow. But he was nowhere to be found.

"Where are you?" he called out to him. "Come back here and fight you coward!"

As if answering his call, Shadow reappeared behind him, a few inches above him in the air and slammed his fists on the echidna's head. The echidna cried out in pain as he fell to the ground and tried to stand up again. Shadow spun around him the same way I did to that Knuckles clone before ; creating a black whirlwind that sucked the dark gray echidna into it and flung him helplessly into mid-air. The jet black hedgehog used Chaos Control again to warp himself behind the airborne figure in order to punch him with full force. I could hear the echidna cry out as he was sent towards the ocean and made a huge splash in it.

"Wow! That was awesome, Shadow!"

When I heard that familiar voice, I turned back to my left to see Tails getting up. I was so glad that he was okay.

"Yeah, you took care of that guy like he was nothing but a dummy," I told the red-streaked hedgehog that now had his feet back on  
the surface.

"Well, I would call him a dummy since he called me a coward, " he said while turning towards me and Tails. "Who did he think he was, talking to the ultimate life form like that?"

"I don't think he knew that you're the ultimate life form," I replied. I tried to get up again, but the great pain was still in my legs. Crying out from the affliction, I let myself lay down again.

"Sonic, are you okay?" Tails asked me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answered him. "Whatever that echidna did to me, it really hurt my legs."

"What did he do to you?"

"He blasted me and Tails with some strange green energy just as I was about to hit that Knuckles clone."

"Knuckles clone?" Shadow said with a puzzled look on his face. "Since when did Knuckles get cloned?"

"That's what I would like to know," I replied. I looked at the Knuckles clone and saw that he had still not moved from the tree. Something was bothering me about him. I knew that his eyes were eerily different, but he somehow didn't seem like a clone. If he was, why did he try to stop that other echidna from killing me? I was completely helpless and yet he didn't want me to be killed.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful Shadow, but what were you doing here anyway?" I asked the black hedgehog.

"I was on my way back from the shooting range when I saw some freaky green blasts coming from the beach and decided to check it out. When I saw you lying there with that echidna about to kill you, I thought it was time for me to join the party."

"Thanks a lot, Shadow," I said to him.

"Well, don't think of it like we're buddies," he said to me. "I only did it because you helped me several times."

"I thought you would say something like that."

"Sonic, what do we do about Knuckles?" Tails asked me. "He's not moving. Is he.." The twin-tailed fox's voice was breaking up as tried to finish  
his sentence.

"Dry your eyes kid," Shadow told him. "I think he's just unconscious. I'm going to take him to a secluded area in the city. I have some questions to ask him when he wakes up."

He lifted the immobile red echidna and placed him on his shoulder before dashing off back towards the city, looking like he was skating on the surface. We watched him skate down the streets until he disappeared from sight. As soon as he was gone, I heard Tails cry out in alarm. He was shaking like his whole body had been turned to gelatin.

"Tails, what is it?" I asked my nervous little buddy.

"Sonic, look!" He pointed to the ocean. When I looked in the direction he was pointing in, I saw the silhouetted figure of that dark gray echidna rising out of the water. I couldn't believe that he was still alive! He landed in a part of the ocean close to where it looks like the water touches the sky. That was really deep!

"Holy crap!" I said. "It looks like Shadow didn't completely take out that echidna like we thought he did. We better leave before he decides he wants a round two."

"Good idea."

"Tails, do you think you could fly us back? My legs are still hurting."

The young fox grabbed both of my hands and twirled his twin tails, lifting the both of us off of the ground and into the air. As he flew me to our hang-out, I looked back towards the ocean and saw that echidna walking out of it and onto the moist section of the beach were the waves made the sand seem more like mud. I didn't know who he was or where he came from. All I did know was that we had better be ready for him next time.

(Knuckles)

It was in a city. The bright lights threatened the darkness of the night streets that I walked down. My posture and movement would have probably made me look like someone who wandered in from the unknown and was going to disappear into it again. As I continued to walk down the illuminated sidewalk, I heard some commotion nearby. I headed towards the direction of the sound and saw a bunch of thugs that had a young girl cornered in an alley. She shook in fear as they made kissing noises and tried to flatter her by saying how pretty she looked.

"I'm letting you have the privilege of marrying me, you pretty little flower," the one in front of her that I assumed was the leader said to her. The girl tried to run away, but the other thugs grabbed her and pinned her to the cold wall. Both of her wrists were held against the wall as the leader walked right up to her and forced a kiss from her. What a creep!

"Leave me alone!" she cried out with tears in her eyes as soon as he removed his lips from hers.

"Hey, you creep!" I called out to the leader. "The lady just said to leave her alone."

It wasn't my voice. It was Typhoon's again. The leader looked in my direction, and walked over to me, with a great fury in his eyes.

"Who do you think you are, dude?" he asked me sternly. Dude? "We run things in this part of the neighborhood."

Just as he was about to punch me, I grabbed him and bit into his neck. He gasped as I drank the red fluid that flowed through his body until he fell limp. I let his now lifeless body fall to the ground and licked the blood off of the sharp edges of my teeth. Sharp edges? Like fangs? Is that why the teeth were able to puncture skin?

As I looked at the other thugs, they began to tremble like the girl did earlier. They released their grip on her and ran off. After they had vanished, I turned my attention to their victim. She got up and looked at me. I could see the fear in her eyes and on her face as she slowly backed away from me and ran out of the alley and down the streets. I followed her even though I had no idea why.

I awoke to find myself somewhere other than the city I was just in during that dream. A bright light shone overhead, nearly blinding me with its brilliant radiance. I looked around and surveyed my surroundings. The place looked like an operating room in a hospital. I was lying down on a surgical table like I was a patient there. When I tried to get up, I couldn't move my arms. I looked to my right and saw that my wrist had been secured to the table by an attached shackle. When I looked to my left, my other wrist was likewise.

_Is this table for operating or for torture?_ I thought.

The door opened and the familiar form of Shadow walked into the room. Why did he have me restrained like this? I guess I was going to get my answer soon. The red-streaked hedgehog reached into the holster attached to his belt and pulled out a laser gun from it. Then, he walked over to me with a stern look on his face.

"All right, echidna," he said to me. "Time for some explanations."

So, that was it. He was grilling me. But why? I don't remember doing anything to him? He pointed the gun towards me, threatening to shoot me.

"Try anything and it'll be the last thing you ever do."

Man! And I thought being at Typhoon's mercy was the worst thing to ever happen to me. Shadow would fire at anybody who bothered him or got in his way. Even Sonic. Sonic! I had completely forgotten all about him! I remembered seeing Typhoon attempting to kill him before I blacked out at the beach. Was that why Shadow was grilling me? Because he thinks that I killed Sonic? Even though he and Sonic weren't really friends, Shadow thought of him as an ally and would hunt down anybody that tried to kill him. He knew that Sonic and I were always fighting each other and that could make him believe that I would actually try to murder him.

Me kill Sonic? That's ridiculous! It's true that Sonic was my rival, but he was also my best friend. Sure, I tried many times to beat the crap out of him, but I would never kill him. I couldn't believe that he had actually gotten killed and it was all my fault! If I had never released Typhoon, none of this would have happened. Tears began to fill my eyes again just like they did after I killed Amy. I didn't care if Shadow was there pointing his gun at me. I felt like I was falling apart. I couldn't ignore the guilt that I was feeling.

_Sonic, I'm sorry!_

Sonic's narration in this chapter was longer than I thought it would be. Oh well. That's it for Chapter Five.


	6. Rescued from Shadow

Only two new reviews since Chapter 2. A lot of story alerts though.

A while had passed before I could see our hang-out in the area come into view. It was a house that almost has the same blue color as the sky. It had a large basement that Tails had converted into a hidden laboratory where he worked on our plane - the Tornado, and other types of vehicles, machinery, and gadgets. My little twin-tailed buddy began to drop his altitudeas soon as we were a few inches from the roof and landed me safely on the front step under our door.

When he made sure that I was content sitting on the ground (even though the stone step felt cold), Tails let go of my hands and let his feet land next to me on the step while he stopped spinning his namesake. As soon as he did, he unlocked the door, turned the knob, and pushed the door open all the way. Then, he put my left arm around his shoulder giving me support to walk into the house and over to the sofa. Man, did my legs hurt! It was such a relief to finally rest them.

"Are you going to be okay, Sonic?" Tails asked me. "Do you need anything?"

"I'll be fine," I told him. "I just need to rest my legs for a while."

Tails walked out of the living room and went up the stairs to his bedroom. As soon as he was gone, I stared at the ceiling, thinking about Amy. If the Amy we came across was really a clone, what had happened to the real Amy? Was she okay? My head filled with worry from those thoughts. If Amy had been taken somewhere, I was going to find her.

I was so beat up that it was hard for me to stay awake. After all that had happened that night, I decided to rest my eyes for a little while. It was just too much of a struggle for me to keep them open.

(Knuckles)

_What have I done? I'm such an idiot!_

I couldn't get those thoughts out of my head. My guilt had completely taken over me. Fighting my tears was futile. I just couldn't control myself like when I attacked Amy earlier that night. I thought that Sonic was dead! How would I ever forgive myself for that?

"Quit the waterworks, echidna and START TALKING!"

The cold, angry voice of Shadow caused me to open my watery eyes and look once again at the jet black hedgehog still pointing his gun at me. The guilt of killing Sonic was eating me inside and Shadow was threatening to shoot me if I made any attempt to get free.

_Things just can't get any worse!_

That's what I thought until I heard the sound of a window smashing out in the hallway. Shadow and I both turned our attention to the door and saw a flash of a familiar green light blast the door open.

_Oh no! Please don't let it be..._

It was. The last person I wanted to see. Typhoon. His dark blue eyes were filled with anger as he turned them towards Shadow. The red-streaked hedgehog did the same thing like he was the echidna's reflection in a mirror.

"You!" They both said it at the same time.

"I thought you'd be dead by now!"

"I'm going to make sure _you're_ dead hedgehog!"

Once they had finished speaking coldly to each other, the both of them had gone into attack mode. Shadow aimed his gun at Typhoon and fired at him. The dark gray echidna dodged the laser blast and returned fire by shooting a blast of green energy at his attacker. Shadow dodged the attack and tried to shoot at him again.

Both of them kept repeating the process like it was a practice routine. Shadow would shoot at Typhoon, Typhoon would dodge it, he would fire at Shadow, Shadow would dodge it, and they would do the same thing all over again. It was like that was all they could do. The two of them just kept shooting at each other like it was the only thing that mattered.

Did they forget that I was restrained to the surgical table and was unable to move? It was like they didn't even know that I was there! Neither of them couldn't have freed me or at least pushed me into the hallway so I wouldn't have been in their war zone?

Finally, Shadow put an end to the repetitive routine by crying out, "Chaos Control!" and vanishing from sight in a blinding white radiance. Typhoon didn't look surprised at all. His cobalt blue eyes had changed to the eerie green color of the energy he blasted me with. He took his left hand and I could see the bright green energy glowing in his now clenched fist.

"You're not pulling that same trick on me again hedgehog!"

_What is he talking about?_ I thought. _Has he seen Shadow do this before?_

He must have because he knew that Shadow was going to appear behind him. When he did, Typhoon somehow released the energy in the form of a tornado behind him. The newly made green whirlwind sucked the red-streaked hedgehog into it and twirled him around the same way Sonic's did to me during our fight on the beach. Shadow was spun around the room until the whirlwind came to the wall, slamming him into it and causing him to fall to the floor. The hedgehog groaned as he tried to get up.

Typhoon grabbed a key hanging by the destroyed doorway. (Wow! The blast didn't cause the key to fall down?) Then, he turned back towards me and walked over to the surgical table that I was restrained on. He fitted the key into each of the locks on the shackles, causing them to open and freeing me.

I stood up on the table and let my feet touch the floor. As soon as I was standing up straight again, Typhoon grabbed the wrist on my right arm.

"Come on! We have to go back to the island!"

Before I could ask him why, he ran out of the room, yanking me along. He led us through the hallway, down the stairs, and right out the front doorway of the building.

When he stopped, I asked him, "Typhoon, what is wrong with you? Why do we need to go back to the island? The sun's not coming up for another hour."

He replied, "Knuckles, we have to go back! Now!"

"You echidnas aren't going anywhere!"

The both of us turned our heads to see an angry Shadow down the hallway of the building, aiming his laser gun at us. The anger in his eyes and his finger on the trigger showed us that he had lost his patience and had resorted to killing us. Typhoon's eyes began to turn the eerie glowing green color of that strange energy that he was creating in his hands at that very moment. He raised both of them above his head and let the energy form into a ball of green fire that was gaining in size every second. An unearthly wind began blowing around him as if he was the eye of a hurricane.

_What is he doing?_ I thought. Whatever he was doing was making me worry. It looked like he was building up his power for something destructive.

Just as Shadow was about to pull the trigger on his gun, Typhoon finally released the energy from his hands and sent it down the hallway of the building. We both watched the bright green cannon ball-sized energy shoot down the hallway and towards Shadow's feet. The jet black hedgehog jumped in the air, dodging the blast.

"You missed!" he said to his attacker.

"I wasn't aiming at you."

When Shadow heard that, he turned his head towards the green fireball just in time to see it hit a cylinder of gas. Typhoon grabbed my wrist again and dragged me out of the building before the gas cylinder exploded. When I looked back, I could see Shadow still inside, lying helplessly on the floor with the fire from the explosion not too far behind him.

Typhoon let my arm go and placed his hands on the ground with his eyes turning that eerie green color.

_Oh no! Not again!_

There was rumbling as the ground around the building started to shake and crumble like in an earthquake. I saw Shadow look up at the ceiling as it began to fall. Before he could say "Chaos Control!," the building had caved in, burying the fire and him along with it.

I couldn't believe my eyes! I just saw Shadow be buried alive under a building! Even though he had been threatening to kill me, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. It's very disturbing to see somebody be crushed by a building before your very eyes.

Typhoon placed his hand on my wrist (again) and tried to take me back with him. But this time, his grip felt kind of loose and he looked like he had been drained of all his strength. Was he suffering from the same thing I was before I bit Amy earlier that night?

"What's wrong with you?" I asked him.

"Knuckles, I'm very weak. That blast and quake I did took a lot of energy out of me."

"You mean you can hardly move or attack anybody?"

"Yeah."

"Good! That's just what I wanted to know!" I jerked my arm free of Typhoon's grasp. Then, I took my fist and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Now that he was lying helplessly there, I turned away from him and started to head back to Angel Island.

"Knuckles! You can't leave me here!" Typhoon called out to me with some sorrow in his voice.

"Sure I can!" I shouted back. "Why would I want to help a blood drinking murderer like you? You made me into a killer just like you and you killed people including some of my friends! I hate you and you deserve to die!" And with that, I started to glide back towards the island.

As soon as I was above some of the tallest buildings in the city, I looked back down at the surface and saw something very strange. It was a figure in a hooded cloak. What was really strange was that it looked like the figure I saw in the dream I had before I left the island that night.

When I reached the surface of the island, there were important questions buzzing around in my head. What was going on? Did the dreams mean something? Why was I always Typhoon in them? And who was the hooded figure I saw?

Sorry I took so long to update (again). I'm pretty sure all you SonAmy fans will like Chapter Seven.


	7. The Sun is Shining and Amy's Screaming?

No new reviews or story alerts. Is anybody even reading this anymore?

I was awakened by a scream. When I opened my eyes, I could see sunlight pouring out of the window. I must've dozed off. I sat up on the sofa and stood up on my feet. My leg had obviously healed overnight because I didn't even feel a little bit of pain from it. That screaming I heard outside sounded just like...Amy!

I stood up wide awake and sped out the door to the location of the screaming. I screeched my feet to a halt when I found Amy out in the woods. She was clutching herself, sinking to the ground, and shrieking like a child that just had their shot. Whatever kind of terrible pain she was in would have made my hurt leg the night before look more like somebody had just kicked it.

As I looked at Amy, I couldn't believe what I saw. I started to notice what looked like smoke coming from her flesh. She stood up and moved over to the shade from a tree behind her. When she was in the slightly darker area provided by the tree, the smoke began to disappear. After it did, she let out a huge sigh of relief as she closed her eyes and let her arms release their grip on her.

_This is weird!_ I thought.

I decided to walk over to her. When I had just reached the shade, she opened her eyes and gazed at me with her dark-filled emerald green pupils. I let out a yelp as I stepped back into the faint morning light in shock from seeing those eerie looking eyes of hers. Looking at them was like peering into ultimate darkness. Amy lowered her eyebrows in a look of scorn and began to walk over to me. For the first time in a real long while, I began to tremble  
in fear.

"Sonic, you've been running from me the entire time last night! You are really starting to make me-." Before she could finish, she started to scream again.

She had walked into the sunlight and then retreated back into the shade. Why couldn't she go out into the sun? It's like it was burning her. Literally from the look of the smoke earlier!

"Sonic, you were always running from me!" Amy said starting to sound a little whiny. "Even when I helped you break out of your jail cell on Prison Island, you and the others always left me behind! Even we were on the ARK!"

I let out a gasp when I heard what she said. There was no way she could've been a clone! She and I were the only ones who knew about the time she freed me from my cell on Prison Island. It really was Amy! But what had happened to her? And why was she unable to go out in the sun without burning? I had to help her get away from the sunlight first before I could ask her.

I told her to stay in the shade before I dashed back to the house and got an ocean blue blanket from the closet in the living room. As soon as I did, I ran back out to the woods where Amy was waiting for me in the protection of the tree's shadow. I spread out the blanket and covered her with it, making sure that her entire body was protected from the sun. Then, I scooped her up in my arms and ran back into the house.

As soon as we were in, I placed her on the sofa that I had slept on the night before. Then, I closed the window blinds so the sunlight couldn't get into the room. When I made sure that there wasn't a way for the sun to come in, I took the blanket off of Amy. As I unveiled her face, I could see a sad, confused look in her eerily dark eyes.

Tears filled them as she began to cry into my chest, muffling her sobs. I looked pitifully down at her and wrapped my right arm around her.

"Sonic, why are you always being mean to me? After I helped you many times, you still continued to run away from me! And now look at what happened  
to me!"

_She's blaming me for what happened to her?_ I thought. _Just because I told her that it was just supposed to be me and Tails that night?_

I lifted my head up and gently pulled her away from my chest. She had her tear-filled eyes closed and was still crying uncontrollably like a child.

_"_Amy," I finally said to her. She opened her eyes which were still filling up with tears, but she kept her head down, refusing to look at me. It was like she was ashamed to let me see her crying that way. But then again, she probably did it because she knows that I don't like seeing people being sad. I placed my right hand under Amy's chin and lifted her head to look at me so we were making eye contact. She sniffled as she looked at my face while I wiped the tears from her eyes.

"What _did_ happen to you? Why are you unable to go out into the sunlight?"

"I don't know!" she replied. "This is the first time that it's ever happened!"

"What happened to you last night?"

"After you left with Tails, I spent a while taking a walk around the woods. From out of nowhere, I saw this strange dark figure walk towards me. At first, I didn't recognize him. Then, when he stepped into the moonlight, I saw that it was Knuckles."

"Knuckles?"

"Yes. He said that he had to see you right away. Before I could ask him why, he started to look at me kind of strange. Then, he grabbed me and bit me."

"He bit you?" I asked in shock. "Knuckles bit you?"

"Yes. As soon as he did, he sucked on my throat and then he ran off. Not long after that, I started to feel pain all over my body. Then, you and Tails showed up shortly afterwards."

I couldn't believe what Amy had just told me! Her story sounded a little ridiculous, but I knew that she couldn't have been a clone. She tried to kill me just because Knuckles bit her? When I thought of that, I remembered what that red echidna said to me the night before : "Sonic, you have to help me."

The Amy I was with was really Amy. And that meant that the echidna I fought with that night was really Knuckles. What was going on here? What had happened to Knuckles that made him bite Amy? As I wondered about that, my thoughts were then interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Sonic, what's going on?" Amy and I both looked towards the upper right hand corner to see Tails walking down the stairs. He must've been awakened by Amy's screaming too because he let out a yawn and was rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, Sonic. I had a terrible dream last night. I dreamt that we found Amy lying on the ground after leaving the arcade and she tried to attack us! Then, we ran away from her and found Knuckles and you got in a fight with him! And then this-"

"And then some strange echidna showed up and Shadow took him out."

"Yeah, Sonic! How did you know that?"

I looked at my double-tailed buddy with a look on my face that showed how puzzled I was about what he said to me.

_Tails, are you so freaked out by what happened last night that you're trying to convince yourself that it was just a horrible nightmare?_ I thought.

"Sonic, what is Amy doing here and why did I hear her screaming earlier?" he asked me.

I turned my attention back to the pink hedgehog sitting across from me on the sofa. When Amy looked at my face, she began to cry again. She must have been tired because she then laid down on the sofa, letting her head rest on my lap. She closed her eyes and in a few minutes, she let herself cry to sleep. As I looked down at her, I had a terrible thought. I didn't know what to do with her.

She couldn't go out into the sunlight, so where was she going to stay until nightfall? I couldn't take her outside and I couldn't leave her in the living room either. I thought about putting her in Tails's underground laboratory, but it probably wouldn't have been very comfortable for her. There was no place to sleep down there. And I didn't want to put her in the closet. What if she suffocated in there?

Just then, I decided where to put Amy. I scooped her up in my arms, dashed up to the bedroom Tails and I shared, and placed her on my mattress on the bottom of our bunk bed. She looked very peaceful sleeping. As a matter of fact, she actually looked kind of pretty.

I woke myself up from the trance that I was in and turned my attention away from her and towards the windows ; one across from her and the other to the right. I went over to them and closed the ocean blue curtains in order to prevent the sunlight from entering the room. The reason why I didn't do that before I put Amy in the room is because the sun was shining on the opposite side of the house which meant that there was no way for the sun to come in through the windows until late afternoon. Then, I walked back over to Amy.

_What is going on here?_ I thought as I watched her sleeping on my bed. _How could Amy not be able to go out into the sunlight after Knuckles bit her? Why did he bite her? And why do they both have that eerie dark look in their eyes?_

_"_Sonic, what are you doing? Why did you close the curtains?"

I turned my head to see Tails whom had just walked into the room after I heard his voice. I walked over to him and then placed my hand on his shoulder.

"Tails, " I said to him as I led him out of the room and down the stairs. "There is something you really need to know."

(Knuckles)

I could see the rays of the morning sun shining on the island from the Hidden Palace's entrance. I knew I should've probably been sleeping until nightfall, but I just couldn't. The sunlight was always something that bothered me, but I missed the feel of the warm rays on my body. I started to wonder if I was ever going to go out into the sunlight again.

At that very moment, I realized that Typhoon never came back. I figured he was probably dead.

_Good! _I thought. _He deserves it after what he did to Sonic and Shadow!_

As soon as I thought of the two hedgehogs, I started to feel sad. Even though I felt sympathetic towards Shadow, I was more upset about Sonic. Not only was he my only chance to be changed back to normal, but he was also my friend. You can imagine how devastated I was thinking about losing a friend. Especially considering the fact that I've been living alone for several years.

I laid down on the cold, hard ground of the Hidden Palace and began to close my eyes. One final thought was in my head before I fell asleep : _Typhoon, wherever you are, I hope you're suffering for all those things you did!_

Yes, I know Knuckles's narration was short in this chapter. I'll try to get working on Chapter 8 in about a week or two.


	8. Knuckles and Amy Are Vampires?

I made a mistake. I actually got _one_ story alert after putting up Chapter 6.

"So Amy is really a vampire?"

"Yes," I told Tails as I sat opposite from him on the living room sofa. "And that Knuckles clone we saw last night was really Knuckles himself."

"But Sonic, how exactly did they become vampires in the first place?"

Before I could give him a reasonable answer, I was interrupted by the sound of a knob turning. We looked at the front door just in time to see it slam open. The familiar figure breathed heavily as he lifted his head so he could see us with his crimson eyes.

"Shadow!" I cried out. I could tell there was something wrong with the red-streaked hedgehog. He sounded exhausted like he had been running for days without ever stopping, he had his left hand on the door railing as if it was the only way to keep him from falling to the floor, and he looked beaten up like he had lost a huge fight.

"What the rage of Chaos happened to you?" I asked him.

He took a few more breaths before he answered me. "It was that echidna."

"Knuckles?" I asked.

"No," he said while shaking his head. "It was that other one that he was with."

"The one you sent flying into the ocean? So, he _did_ survive."

"Yes, he did," Shadow said. The way he said that told me that he was out of breath. It was probably the first time I had ever seen him look exhausted. He was probably so weak that he would collapse soon. Concerned about that, I walked over to him, placed his right arm around my shoulder, and led him to the sofa.

"I don't...need your...help," he said to me between breaths as I walked him over to the couch.

"You do this time," I told him. "You look like you can barely stand up."

I stopped in front of the sofa and let Shadow lay on the cushions. Tails was still sitting on the opposite side of the furniture, looking at the heavily breathing hedgehog, wondering why he was so exhausted.

"What did that strange echidna do to you, Shadow?" the curious fox asked him. After the jet black hedgehog finally caught his breath, he told us what had happened the night before.

"I took Knuckles to an abandoned hospital downtown. I placed him on one of the surgical tables and secured him to it so he couldn't escape after waking up. When he did, I pointed my gun at him to try to get him to talk."

"Oh, like that would do any good," I said with sarcasm.

"As I was saying," he said in a nasty tone, "before I could get even one word out of him, I heard a noise and then the door blasted open. That dark gray echidna then walked into the room and we fought for a while. I used Chaos Control in order to sneak behind and hit him again, but he surprised me with that strange green energy of his. It spun me around and slammed me into the wall."

"Did you leave Knuckles there?" I asked.

"No. After I hit the wall, the strange echidna took the key and freed him. Then, they both ran down the hall and out of the building. When I got my strength back, I followed them. Just as I was about to shoot them, the strange echidna used that energy of his to shoot at me. At least I thought he was aiming at me until I saw the blast hit a cylinder of gas behind me.

"I would've made it out okay, but he somehow caused the building to shake and cave in. I tried to use Chaos Control again, but the roof fell on me and trapped me. It took all of my strength to lift the rubble off of me and crawl out of there. When I finally escaped, both of the echidnas were gone."

"Wow! You're lucky you made it out in one piece," I told the black hedgehog.

"Shadow," Tails began after not speaking for a while, "Sonic says that Knuckles and Amy have become vampires."

"Vampires? What do you mean?"

"Last night, Tails and I saw Knuckles bite a man's neck," I explained. "And Amy told me that Knuckles bit her last night too. The man had two teeth marks on his neck where Knuckles had bit him, but Amy didn't have any marks on her at all. And when she came by this morning, she had to stay out of  
the sunlight."

"So, Knuckles and Amy are vampires?" Shadow asked. "How did that happen?"

"Something tells me that dark gray echidna had something to do with it," I said.

"Well, if they're vampires, it looks like we'll just have to kill them," Shadow said.

"No," I told him. "Listen, let's just wait until nightfall, and then we'll decide what to do about them."

"That's a stupid idea. We should kill them now before they come back to kill us."

"Shadow, what else can we do? We don't even know if Knuckles and that other echidna are still around. And even if Knuckles and Amy are vampires, we can't destroy them. They're our friends."

"Yeah. I guess you're right, but I still think it's stupid to wait until nightfall to do something."

"We don't really have a choice. We have to decide what to do about Knuckles and Amy. And if that other echidna ever comes back, we'll finish him off  
for good!"

(Knuckles)

I had finally caught up with that echidna girl I had saved from those thugs. When she stopped at a wall, she turned around to make an attempt to run in another direction. After she saw me standing a few feet from her, she realized I had her trapped. She began to tremble like before as I moved closer to her until I was just inches away from her face. After quaking in fear for a moment, she finally spoke to me.

"I don't have any money," she said sounding scared with tears beginning to fill her eyes. "Please leave me alone."

"No, it's okay," I told her with Typhoon's voice. "I won't hurt you."

I reached out my mitten covered right hand to touch her face. She continued to tremble as I gently brushed her left cheek . The girl looked at me with a confused look in her tear-filled eyes.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Summer."

I opened my eyes and found myself on the floor of the Hidden Palace. I yawned and stretched my legs before standing up and walking to the palace's entrance. As I walked closer to the opening, I couldn't stop thinking about the dreams I had. Now I was really confused about them. They all seemed to be in a sequence and I was Typhoon in all of them. Why? I wondered about that as I walked over to the entrance of the Hidden Palace and up to the island's surface. The sun had gone down and the moon and stars were shining in the nearly cloudless night sky above.

I scanned the island until I heard the noise of footsteps on the altar. Someone was trying to steal the Master Emerald! Since I was the guardian and the emerald was needed to keep the island up in the sky, I couldn't let whoever the person was take it. As I moved closer to the altar, I recognized who the thief was. The bright green light shining from the emerald revealed the figure's big ears and dark wings.

"Rouge!"

The white bat turned her attention to me after hearing me say her name. She looked at me with a smug look on her face like she was about to laugh  
at me.

"Well, hello guardian. Long time, no see."

"Rouge, how many times do I have to tell you, you can't take the Master Emerald."

"Oh? And who's going to stop me? You?"

"You bet your fancy boots I'm going to stop you."

"Bring it on, echidna."

I took my left fist and charged at her, but Rouge flew up into the air and dodged me. Then, she performed her spiral dive where she descends from the air and twirls around with her feet pointing downwards like a drill. I rolled out of the way seconds before she could hit me. She landed and tried to give me an upper kick, but I grabbed her foot before it had a chance to make contact with my chin.

Rouge gasped like she was not expecting that. I threw her down and she ended up on her back on the grass covered surface below the emerald altar. The white bat groaned as she made an attempt to stand up. I jumped from the altar and landed on the spot where Rouge was. Before she could stand on her own two feet again, I grabbed her with both of my hands and pulled her up. My grip on her was firm as I looked at her sternly, baring my teeth.

"You still don't have any manners, treasure hunter. You need to get off this island and learn how to treat a lady better."

"Maybe I would treat _you_ better if you _acted_ more like a lady," I told her. "Now, I want you to get off my island right now before I..."

Before I could finish my threat to her, I could feel her starting to tremble. This was the first time I saw her actually look afraid. Why was she scared? She was never afraid of fighting me before.

"Rouge, what's wrong with you?" I asked her. "Why are you trembling?"

Before she could answer me, I could sense that feeling I had the night before when I bit Amy. Not again! Why was this happening to me? I began to lean my head toward her until my mouth was close enough to her neck. She continued to tremble as I punctured her neck with my teeth and drank the warm red fluid from it. The white bat gasped and moaned while I sucked her blood until I finally removed my mouth from her throat and let her fall to the ground.

I was shocked as I watched Rouge collapse. She was breathing the same way Amy was the other night.

_Oh no! _I thought._ I killed her!_

There was nothing I could do. I couldn't ask Sonic to help me because I thought that he was dead. What was I going to do? If there was no way to get me back to normal, I was doomed to drink blood for the rest of my life. Even though there was no way for me to help Rouge, I couldn't just leave her body on the island. So, I scooped her up in my arms, headed to the edge of the island, and glided off into the cool night air. I landed somewhere in the forest and left Rouge there. Then, trying to fight back the guilt and the tears forming in my eyes, I ran off into the woods.

End of Chapter Eight. Oh, and another mistake I made. I forgot to mention in Chapter Five that the girl from Knuckles's dream was an echidna. My bad.


	9. Love or Blood Thirst?

Here's Chapter Nine! I updated the story pretty quick this time, didn't I?

It was after dark. Tails and I were sitting on the sofa in the living room that night. I looked at the clock. It was almost 7 P.M. Shadow had left around noon and was supposed to come back before the sun set that day. We still needed to decide what to do about Amy.

"Man! Where is Shadow? He should've been back by now. "

"Well, you know him, Sonic. He's always off doing his own thing."

"What I would like to know is what kind of _thing_ he would be off doing on his own that would make him so late. I know he isn't slow."

When I looked over at Tails again, he had a worried look on his face. He must have just thought of something terrible.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"What if something happened to him, Sonic? What if that strange echidna we saw with Knuckles last night got him?"

"I don't think so, Tails. Shadow's a guy that can take care of himself."

"But, you remember what he told us this morning. That strange echidna trapped him under that building."

"I'm sure Shadow wouldn't let the same thing happen to him again," I told my younger two-tailed buddy. "But I would like to know why he's taking  
so long."

I got up from the sofa and suggested that we went out to look for him.

"But, Sonic, what about Amy? Are we just going to leave her here?"

"We won't be gone long. She'll be fine."

Tails got up from the couch and we both headed out the door in search of the jet black hedgehog. I wasn't really that worried about leaving Amy alone. What really bothered was her trying to attack me again after she woke up. I didn't know where Shadow was or why he was taking so long, but I was going to find out.

(Knuckles)

I was running through the woods like I was the night before. That same feeling of guilt I had after I bit Amy returned and started to haunt me again. I felt just terrible! After running for a few minutes, I let myself rest by a tree. As I let my strength return, I thought about everyone I knew that I believed was dead because of me. Amy. Sonic. Shadow. Rouge.

_They're all dead_, I thought. _And it's all my fault!_

I fought the urge to cry, but my guilt had won the battle again. Tears poured out of my eyes and dropped to the ground.

_You're being such a crybaby!_ I told myself. I knew I was, but it's so hard not to be when you're responsible for killing others that you knew. Even if some them were always giving you a hard time or threatened to kill you.

As I stood there crying my eyes out, I heard a soft voice singing nearby. It was female and it sounded very familiar. I turned to the direction of the singing and saw who was doing it. Even through my ripply vision, I was still able to recognize the figure. It was Tikal, the echidna girl I had constantly thought about before Typhoon had bitten me.

I wiped the tears from my eyes so I could get a better look at her. The moonlight gave a faint but beautiful glow to her peach fur. Her necklace and tiara shone with a brilliant luster of gold while the sapphires on them glittered like the starry sky that night. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was  
so beautiful.

Not taking my gaze off of Tikal, I began to walk over to her. She let out a gasp when she heard the sound of my footsteps approaching her. She put her hand over her mouth and started to tremble the same way that the echidna girl in the dream I had did. When the moonlight revealed my appearance, she stopped trembling and let her hand slowly fall back down to her side.

When I was right in front of Tikal, she started to tremble again after looking directly into my eyes. She just seemed so afraid of me. Amy was. Rouge was. And if I recalled correctly, Sonic was too. I couldn't figure out why.

"Tikal, why are you trembling?" I asked her.

"It's your eyes," she replied.

"What about them? You think violet is a creepy color for eyes?" Our people had blue eyes, so maybe she thought that my eye color was weird.

"No, it's not the _color_ of your eyes," she told me. "It's like there isn't any light in them. They seem dark and lifeless."

"Dark and lifeless?"

What did she mean? Dark and lifeless? When I wondered about that, I remembered the first time I met Typhoon before he bit me. His eyes were just the way Tikal had described mine. Dark and lifeless. After remembering that, I thought about the times when everyone acted scared after seeing my face. That's why they were afraid of me. It was because of the darkness in my eyes.

I had to see the dark and lifeless look of my eyes for myself. I spotted a puddle nearby and ran over to it. When I looked into the water, I didn't see anything. I couldn't see my own reflection!

"I can't see my reflection," I said out loud.

"That's strange because I can see it just fine."

I looked over to my left side and saw Tikal looking into the puddle along with me. Her reflection I could see perfectly well, but I still couldn't see my own. I knelt down and reached out one of my mitten-covered hands to touch the water with my finger. Ripples formed in the puddle and then, just as quickly, dissolved. The water was smooth again, but I still didn't see my reflection. Tikal's was the only one I saw in the puddle.

_This is weird!_ I thought. _How come Tikal can see my reflection and I can't?_

I stood up and looked back over at the peach echidna next to me. As soon as she saw my face, she started to tremble again. I gently placed my hands on her arms and looked into her sapphire blue eyes. The shakiness in them reminded me of a shimmering reflection of the moon in ripply water. I could still feel her quaking as I continued to look at her.

"Tikal?" I said softly to her.

"Please, don't hurt me," she said.

"Why would I hurt someone sweet and pretty like you?" I asked her while stroking her spines.

"Because you're different now," she told me. "There is some kind of darkness inside of you. How do I know that you won't hurt me?"

Because I wasn't thirsty at the time. When I looked at Tikal, she was all that I had on my mind. My thirst didn't corrupt me at all.

"Tikal, I would never, ever try to hurt you," I said to her as I continued gazing into her eyes.

After I said that, Tikal placed her arms around me. At first, I was surprised that her fear left her after what I said. A moment ago, she was terrified of me. And now she was embracing me like a loved one. When I got over my surprise from her doing that, I placed my arms around her as well. Ever since I started thinking of her back when I was sitting alone guarding the Master Emerald, holding her in my arms was all I wanted to do. When I held her, I didn't feel alone anymore. I hated living on Angel Island all by myself. I got lonely for companionship sometimes, but with Tikal around me, that feeling just seemed to have melted away.

Not long afterwards, I heard Tikal let out a gasp. I felt her begin to tremble again.

"Tikal, what is it?" I asked her.

She didn't answer me. She just kept staring at whatever was frightening her. I turned my head to the direction she was looking in and was shocked at what I saw. It was none other than Typhoon. His arms were crossed and he was just looking at us. When I saw his familiar form, I held Tikal closer to me. There was no way I was going to let him hurt her.

"You are really something else, Knuckles," he said as he walked closer to us. "You're a real gentleman when it comes to ladies. But when it comes to guys, you're a real jerk!"

As he continued to walk closer to us, I released my grip on Tikal. Then, I turned around and put my arms out to shield her.

"Listen, Typhoon," I said to him angrily. "If you make any attempt to hurt Tikal, it would take a miracle to save you from me!"

"You think that I would try to hurt her? You really don't know me that well, Knuckles."

"You're right. I don't. Then again, maybe I do. Maybe I know you won't hurt her because she probably reminds you of a girl you use to know."

"I don't remember having a girl that was like her."

"What about Summer?"

Typhoon was taken aback by that. His eyes widened in shock and his face began to frown. Then, he covered his face with his hands like he was going to cry. I could her him saying "Summer" with his voice breaking up while he shook his head. So, he _did_ know that girl in the dream I had. But, what happened to her? I was pretty sure that whatever it was must've been terrible. I left Tikal and walked towards Typhoon.

"What happened to Summer?" I asked the upset dark gray echidna. "Did you kill her?"

"No," he replied. "I never would have killed her. I loved her."

"Then, what happened to her?"

He wouldn't answer me. It was just like when I asked him why he put himself in that stasis tube on Angel Island. Typhoon said that he loved Summer, so whatever happened to her must have been the reason why he was in that stasis tube.

While I wondered about that, I heard voices nearby. They sounded familiar.

"We looked everywhere for Shadow and we still can't find him." It sounded like Tails.

"I don't know where Shadow is, but he better have a good reason for not showing up earlier like he said he would. Hey, who are those guys looking  
at us?"

That voice sounded like Sonic's.

_But, it couldn't be, could it?_ I thought. The two figures walked closer to the three of us and I saw them better when they walked into the moonlight. It _was_ Sonic and Tails! Sonic was alive! I felt relief come over me the same way that guilt had earlier that night. When the blue hedgehog and his twin-tailed companion saw us, they froze in their tracks.

"Knuckles?" Sonic said.

"Sonic! It's that strange echidna again!" Tails screamed while pointing at Typhoon.

Before I was about to go over to Sonic and talk to him, that thirsty feeling I had came back again. I tried to run away, but Typhoon grabbed my right arm and dragged me towards Sonic. When the blue hedgehog made an attempt to run for it, Typhoon blasted him with that strange green energy of his. Sonic struggled to get up, but his effort was futile. His attacker went over to him, held the helpless hedgehog up by his chest, then forced me to hold and stand him up with my hands. Typhoon wanted me to kill Sonic!

Tails dashed towards us in order to save his older comrade, but Typhoon grabbed his arm before he even had the chance. Then, he held the young fox the same way he made me hold Sonic. Tikal just stood there with her hands over her mouth, watching in fear as we were about to feed off of our victims. I didn't want to kill Sonic. Especially after the guilt I felt when I thought that he was dead. But, my thirst overpowered me. I couldn't fight it anymore!

"Knuckles!" Sonic said to me with fear in his eyes. "Don't do this!"

"You have no idea how badly I don't want to, Sonic," I told him. "I'm sorry, but I can't control it!"

After saying that, I opened my mouth, revealing my fangs that I would use to puncture his skin. Then, I brought my teeth closer to his neck, ready to  
bite him.

End of Chapter Nine.


	10. Do You Feel Like Biting Me Anymore?

I've gotten three new reviews. I haven't had any new ones since Chapter 5.

Knuckles had me in his grip as he moved his mouth closer to my throat. I could see the fangs that he used to bite that man the night before. In a matter of seconds, I was going to be a vampire just like him. Tikal ran over to the strange gray echidna that was trying to bite Tails. She tried to wrench him from the helpless two-tailed fox, but the echidna took one of his hands and swatted her out of the way. After falling on her backside, she used her arms to help her sit up while she watched the two male echidnas lower their mouths to drink our blood. I closed my eyes while the sharp teeth grew closer to my skin. I didn't want to watch that happen.

Just as Knuckles was about to bite my neck, I felt him remove his grip on me as he cried out in surprise. I opened my eyes and saw Shadow holding the red echidna back by one of his dreadlock spines. The jet black hedgehog was late (again), but it was a relief to see him. This time, he was wearing a black and red backpack that I was curious about. What could he have possibly had in there? He lifted Knuckles and threw him a few feet away from him. The echidna cried out before hitting the grass-covered ground on his backside.

Shadow then dashed over to the dark gray echidna holding Tails, about to bite him. The red-streaked hedgehog pulled the echidna away from the double-tailed fox, turned him around, and held him by the chest while he used his right hand to punch his face. Then, he took his left foot and kicked his belly. The dark gray echidna cried out in pain as his attacker released his grip on him and let him slump to the ground.

"Shadow! Where have you been? You were supposed to be back earlier!" I couldn't hide the irritation in my voice.

"Well, I'm sorry I had to save your butts again," he said while brushing himself off.

"You're right. I apologize. If you didn't show up, we would've been goners."

"Uh, Sonic," Tails started. "Knuckles and the other echidna are still here."

Shadow went back over to the red echidna that was still lying on his back. The jet black hedgehog pinned him down to the ground ; anger blazing in his crimson eyes.

"You stupid echidna!" he snarled. "What did you do to Rouge?"

"Rouge?" I said "Shadow, what are you talking about?"

"I found her wandering around in the woods. When I looked at her, I noticed that she had two fangs!"

"Shadow, she's a bat," I told him. "She always had fangs."

"Well, the fangs were longer and sharper than they usually were. And I don't remember her eyes always having that darkness in them either."

"Darkness? You mean the same kind of darkness that Knuckles and Amy have in them?"

"If you don't believe me, see for yourself."

A silhouetted figure appeared in the woods. She walked out of the trees' shadows and into the moonlight where it revealed her as Rouge the Bat. When she was close enough for us to see her face, I noticed quite a few differences about it. Her teeth were longer and sharper like Shadow had just said, and her eyes had the same eerie darkness in them that Amy, Knuckles, and the other echidna had in theirs. She was a vampire too!

"Knuckles!" the white bat screamed. "What have you done to me?"

"I...I...I..." the red echidna stammered while looking at her. He tried to get up, but Shadow still held him down.

"Enough!"

All of us turned our heads to the direction of the dark gray echidna that had almost bitten Tails.

"Knuckles, it's time for me to finish them all off!" he said. The strange echidna's dark blue eyes began to turn the same eerie green color as the ball of energy that was forming into his raised right hand. It was just like the one he was creating back on the beach the other night.

"None of you will stand in our way ever again!" he said.

Before he was about to release the energy on us, something came up from behind him and knocked him out. The dark gray echidna let out a groan as he fell to the ground and lay there. When I looked at what had saved us, I saw a big hammer being held by a familiar pink hedgehog.

"Amy!" I cried out. The girl may not be as fast as me or Shadow, but that Piko Piko Hammer of hers sure comes in handy. She looked at me with anger in her emerald green eyes full of the endless darkness as she walked over to me.

"Sonic!" she yelled at me. "You irresponsible hedgehog! How could you leave me all alone like that? Do you even care about me?"

"Amy, I..."

Before I could finish my sentence, Amy charged at me and pinned me to the ground just like Shadow did to Knuckles earlier. She must have been really mad at me. Well, that's what I thought until she opened her mouth and revealed her fangs before leaning down to bite my throat.

_Oh, crap!_ I thought. _Not this again!_

As much as I didn't want to hurt Amy, I also didn't want to become a vampire like her. Just as she was about to puncture my neck, I lifted my feet, placed them underneath her belly, and kicked her off of me with full force. She cried out the same way Knuckles did when Shadow threw him. I stood up on my own two legs again just in time to see Amy trying to get up in order to make another attempt to attack me.

Shadow took off his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled two things out of it. He placed one of them in Knuckles's mouth and made him bite down on it. Then, he took the other one and stood up, allowing the red echidna to be able to sit up as he sucked on the object that was just put in his mouth.

"Sonic, catch!" the jet black hedgehog called out to me before throwing me the object he was holding like a baseball player throwing the ball. I caught the object in my right hand right before Amy had stood up again. The look in her eyes told me she was now full of rage as she sneered at me. When I looked at what Shadow had thrown me, I was shocked! It looked like a packet of blood!

As I continued to stare at the object he had thrown to me, I felt something push me down. Amy had me pinned to the ground again and made another attempt to bite my neck. I put the packet into her open mouth when she was just a few inches away from my throat. Her teeth punctured holes in the bag, allowing the red fluid to ooze out of it. The angry pink hedgehog released her grip on me and clutched the packet in her mouth as she began to suck on it almost like a baby sucking on a bottle.

"Shadow," I said to the red-streaked hedgehog. "I thought the hospital you took Knuckles to last night was destroyed."

"It was," he told me. "I had to use Chaos Control in order to take those from a working hospital."

My eyes were wide open and my mouth stood agape after hearing what he just said.

"Shadow! You stole those from a hospital? Many people may die because of what you did."

"Would you prefer for those vampires to be feeding off of your neck?" he countered back.

"Fine." I told him while crossing my arms. "I'll let it slide this time."

I wasn't in any mood to argue with him over stealing the packets of blood. If he didn't, Tails and I probably wouldn't lived that night. I looked over at Knuckles. He had sucked all the blood out of his packet and looked at me as he stood up on his legs. Then, he began to walk over to me. I was kind of a little afraid, at first. But, he didn't seem to want to attack and bite me. He was probably making another attempt to talk to me.

(Knuckles)

I had just finished the packet of blood Shadow had given me and was now walking towards him and Sonic.

"You don't feel like biting me anymore, Knuckles?" the blue hedgehog said to me.

"So, you finally figured out I'm not a clone?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Knuckles what is going on here? Why did you bite Amy and Rouge? And who is that echidna?" He pointed to the unconscious charcoal gray echidna lying on the ground. "I thought that you and Tikal were the only echidnas left."

"That's what I thought. I don't know what's going on here, Sonic, but, I do know that the echidna's name is Typhoon."

"Where did he come from?"

"I found him frozen in a stasis tube in a secret room on Angel Island. After I woke him, he bit me and I've been this way since then."

"But, how did he get that way?" Amy asked me.

"I don't know," I answered her. "He never told me."

"Well, I think it's time that he did," Shadow said in a voice that was low but angry. "No echidna is going to bite Rouge unless he has a freaking good reason for it."

The jet black hedgehog sped off towards the unconscious dark gray echidna. The rest of us followed after him. Shadow grabbed Typhoon's arms and then lifted him up into a sitting position.

"Wake up, echidna!" he shouted in his face.

Typhoon moaned and then opened his eyes to see Shadow right in front of him and the rest of us staring at him from behind the red-streaked hedgehog.

"All right, Typhoon," I said as I walked closer to him. "Time for some explanations. How did you get this way? And why did you bite me?"

He refused to say a word. Shadow released Typhoon's right arm, took out his gun, and aimed it at his forehead.

"I'd start talking if I were you, echidna!" he threatened. "It might be the last thing that you will ever do!"

Typhoon let out a deep sigh and then he finally spoke.

"Okay, I'll tell you, but I can't do it out here."

"Why not?" Sonic asked.

"Afraid there will be witnesses to what you're planning to do to us?" Shadow said.

"No, it's nothing like that. Look, I promise if we go somewhere private, I will tell you what happened to me."

"Well, I guess we can go back to mine and Tails's place," Sonic suggested. "I think that's private enough for you."

"Okay, Typhoon," I said to him with my arms crossed. "Once we get to Sonic and Tails's house, you're going to tell us everything."

End of Chapter Ten.


	11. Origin of the Vampire

Three new reviews since my last update.

It was nearly 8 P.M. when we reached the house that Tails and I lived in. All of us gathered in the living room and then we sat down. Amy and I sat on the sofa while everybody else seated themselves on the floor. I was on the right side of the couch while Amy was on the left. I would've sat on the floor, but Amy wanted me to be next to her.

The eight of us had gathered in a circle around the table in the middle of the room, like it was a campfire. Tails was seated next to me on the floor. I don't think he felt very comfortable sitting next to any of the vampires. Shadow was sitting next to him with Rouge by his side. The echidna Knuckles had called "Typhoon" was between her and and the red echidna while Tikal was seated with Knuckles on her right and Amy on her left.

"Shadow, " I whispered to the jet black hedgehog. "What about Rouge? Aren't you worried about her biting you?"

"No," he replied. "I gave her one of the blood packets after I came across her."

"Okay, Typhoon," I said to the dark gray echidna. "How did you get the way you are?"

He breathed out a heavy sigh. Then, the echidna began to tell his story.

"The whole thing had happened 975 years ago. I was 19 years old. I lived with my mom, my step-dad, and my younger half-brother, Lance. My real dad had died when I was just a year old. After I turned two, my mom re-married and later had Lance. I had spent the next sixteen years taking care of my family and looking after my half-brother.

"After I turned 19, war had broken out across the land and Lance and I were chosen to fight for our people. For three months, we fought and we were always victorious. Then, one night during our most gruesome battle ever, Lance had been killed. When I heard him and saw him fall, I ran over to his side and was praying that he was going to be okay. But when I felt him and noticed that he wasn't breathing, I knew he was gone forever.

"As I held him while crying my eyes out, I felt something hit me in the chest. The pain was very great and I knew that I wouldn't have been able to survive the wound. As I let myself lay on the ground next to my brother, I saw a dark, hooded figure in the distance. The way he appeared before me almost looked like he had materialized from the flames of the battlefield. He began to walk dangerously slow towards me. I sensed there was something sinister about him, but I couldn't stay awake as he kept moving closer to me. I eventually succumbed to the weakness of my body and collapsed to the ground.

"When I opened my eyes, I couldn't believe that I was still alive! I wondered how that was possible. As I did, I surveyed my surroundings and realized that I wasn't in the burning battlefield anymore. I was in some kind of stone temple that looked like it had been around for centuries. There was each a black, goblet-shaped lantern the size of a boulder in four sections of the circular room. The way they were positioned made it look like they formed a ring  
around me.

"I made an attempt to stand up. After I did, I saw that the room was lit with torches placed on the walls. Painted on the walls were deities of some long gone civilization. I don't remember exactly what they looked like because it was too long ago. When I looked down, I realized that I was laying on a stone altar that was as black as the huge lanterns around the room. The altar I was standing on was in the middle of some strange red markings on the floor. It didn't take me long to figure out that the markings were for some kind of ritual.

"The dark figure I saw earlier walked up to me and removed the hood from his head so I could see his face. He was an echidna just like me and judging by his form, he looked like he might have been close to my age. I was wondering what he was doing. I turned around and tried to stand up on the floor, but my body would not do what I wanted it to.

"The strange echidna turned me back around, placed his mitten-covered hand on my forehead, and gently pushed me back down onto the altar. 'Not yet,' he told me. 'You're not well enough.' Then, he walked over to one of the walls and used a lit torch he took from it to light all the goblet-shaped lanterns around the room. Within seconds, the jet black vessels had huge flames in them that made the room more visible.

"The echidna put the torch back on the wall and then he walked over to a nearby pedestal with a black book on it. He removed the object from the pedestal and began to walk over towards me again. From the look of it, it seemed to be some kind of spell book that he was holding. He stopped before he could go pass the crimson markings on the floor and began to thumb through the pages until he found the section he was looking for.

"I could hear the echidna start to chant something in some now dead language. I don't remember all of it. The only parts of the chant that I could translate were 'let day become night, let darkness consume the light.' Whatever he was summoning was something very sinister.

"Suddenly, the flames began to turn black like the lanterns they were in and I saw the smoke from them rise up to the ceiling. The smoke looked like it was beginning to form into something. I was so afraid that I began to close my eyes. As soon as I did, I felt a terrible pain all over my body that made me cry and want to hurl. A few seconds later, the pain was gone and the temple was even darker than it was when I first opened my eyes in it. The flames in the lanterns and torches were gone like a gust of wind had blown them out like candles.

"The hooded echidna lit the torches again and then walked back over to me. He said that he was a great and powerful sorcerer called Eclipse. He also told me that he knew my dad. When I asked him what he did to me, he said that he had cast a spell on me. The reason why was because he was trying to prevent me from suffering a terrible fate. I was now able to live forever, but I needed to drink blood in order for me to stay alive. Also, I was told to stay out of the sunlight because it was the only thing that could destroy me.

"Eclipse told me that since he saved me, he was now my master. I had spent many nights drinking the blood of others. Every one of those nights, I would try to kill myself by standing in the light at dawn, but Eclipse always found me and took me to a room. It was shaped just like the room in the temple where he had cast that spell on me, but it was more the size of a shed. He would lock me up in there and I would be all alone in that dark room until the sun  
went down.

"I would spend the whole day sitting on the cold stone floor being upset about my family and being Eclipse's slave. As I sat in the room with my eyes closed, I could've sworn that I heard somebody laughing. The laughter sounded cruel like whoever was making it was enjoying my misery. When I opened my eyes, I didn't see anybody. There was no one there, but I knew I heard somebody laughing.

"Nine-hundred and thirty-five years had passed before I was wandering the streets of an area called Kaleidoscope City. There I met a girl called Summer. When I first came across her, she was cornered in an alley by a bunch of thugs. They were attempting to flirt with her. I grabbed the one that I thought was the leader and killed him. The other thugs ran off and left me and Summer alone in the alley. Summer ran away and I followed her. At first, she was afraid of me, but we eventually developed feelings for each other and she told me how she ended up in the streets.

"Summer was 15 and she had lived with her parents until about a month before. She ran away to Kaleidoscope City because she felt like her parents didn't treat her as an individual and her opinions didn't really matter to them. Ever since the night that I met her, I didn't try to kill myself anymore. But all that changed when my master re-entered the picture."

Typhoon had stopped talking and refused to say another word after that.

"Typhoon," I spoke up after a moment of the gray echidna's silence. "You still haven't told us what happened to Summer."

"Or how you ended up in that stasis tube on Angel Island," Knuckles added.

Finally after a minute had passed, the charcoal gray echidna stood up and looked at the door. The rest of us looked in the same direction, but we didn't hear or see anything.

"Typhoon, what's going on?" Knuckles asked the dark gray echidna.

Instead of answering the red echidna, Typhoon grabbed him by his right arm and ran towards the door. I was starting to think the guy was nuts!

"Typhoon, let me go!" Knuckles told the other echidna. He was grabbing his hand trying to get free of the gray echidna's grip.

Typhoon had refused to do so. He turned the knob of the door, opened it, and dashed out taking Knuckles with him. All of us left in the room ran out the door after them. By the time we got outside, they we're already high in the sky.

"What is wrong with that echidna?" I said.

"He's hiding something," Shadow said. "He wouldn't tell us what had happened to that girl or how he came across Knuckles."

"Maybe we should follow him," Rouge suggested.

We all agreed and chased after the two echidnas. What was wrong with Typhoon? Why did he act so weird? And why did he grab Knuckles? I had the feeling we were going to get those answers very soon.

(Knuckles)

I kept trying to break free of Typhoon's hold on me. What was his problem? He looked at the door, grabbed me, and ran out. Why was he always grabbing me? My patience had run thin. I was going to get him to let me go one way or another.

Pointing my fists down, I dove towards the ground. Typhoon cried out in surprise as I pulled him down to the surface. I started to spin around, letting my spiked fists drill into the grass-covered ground and allowing me to go underneath it. Typhoon refused to let go of me as he yelled while I dragged him around the surface. After spotting a tree nearby, I started to head towards it. I sent Typhoon slamming into the wooded plant and he cried out in pain before finally releasing his grip on my right arm.

I continued digging through the dirt until I let myself resurface a few feet from the tree I had sent Typhoon into. I stood up on the ground and then walked over to the groaning, dark gray echidna as he lay on the ground on his belly. He was rubbing his head, trying to ease the pain from it.

"Typhoon," I said to him while crossing my arms across my chest. "Why did you grab me? What is going on here?"

"Knuckles," he said to me. "We have to go back to the island now."

"Why? The sun's not going to come up for several hours. I have had enough of this mysterious, always freaking out, grabbing, and yanking me echidna routine of yours! Why are you always doing that?"

The charcoal gray echidna stood up on the ground and turned towards me.

"You're just like my half-brother, Lance."

"What do you mean?" I asked him feeling confused.

"You remind me so much of him. Lance was just as stubborn and feisty and independent as you. And he was probably about your age the night when  
he died."

"So, you're doing all this to me just because you miss your brother?"

"No," Typhoon said to me. "I know you're not helpless, Knuckles. You've proven that to me whenever you attacked me and left me alone. But, you are unaware of what has happened to you. So, I stayed with you to make sure that you were okay."

"What do you care if I'm okay or not?"

"Because I feel terrible about what I did to you. All of the victims that I drank the blood of were evil, but you are the first one I bit that didn't deserve it. You were being friendly to me and I drank some of your blood and turned you into what I am."

I couldn't believe what the gray echidna had just told me! He was doing all those things because he felt guilty about turning me into a vampire? And I reminded him of his brother? The one who died in battle that night?

As soon as I thought about the moment when Lance died, I remembered that dream I had two nights ago. It matched that certain part of Typhoon's story! So, did the other two I had! The one about Summer with those thugs and the one after that. Those dreams I had were some of Typhoon's memories! But, how could I have had them? Did he somehow transfer them to my brain when he bit me? If that was true, how _could_ he have done it? It wasn't possible!

When I was going to ask him about that, he suddenly turned away from me and started to look in the direction behind the tree.

"Typhoon, what's wrong with you?" I asked him.

"Knuckles, get out of here."

"What?" I said puzzled by what he just said to me.

"Get out of here! Now!" He turned back towards me after he said that.

"Why? What is your problem?" I started to walk over towards him to see why he was acting that way.

"I said get out of here!"

After he said that, he took his left hand and shot some of his strange energy at me. I cried out as the bright green blast had sent me hurtling away from the dark gray echidna that attacked me with it. I landed on my back about a half mile away from where I was before.

The blast didn't hurt me that much, so I made an attempt to sit up. Now I was furious! As soon as I got my hands on Typhoon, he was going to wish he had stayed in that stasis tube!

Just as I was about to stand up, I saw Typhoon stepping back like he was trying to stay away from something. Then, he started running off into a direction away from the one he was looking in earlier. As I watched him dash off through the woods, I saw a hooded figure in the same spot Typhoon was in before he ran off. I was shocked when I saw the figure. It was the same one I saw last night and the one from that first dream I had!

Before the figure ran after the gray echidna, I heard him shout, "You won't escape from me this time Typhoon!"

End of Chapter Eleven. And I want to thank silverfire113 for what you said in your last review. Your words were very encouraging for me.


	12. Return of the Sorcerer

Three new reviews and some more story alerts. Man! It's been over a month since I last updated this story.

The six of us were speeding through the forest, trying to find the two echidnas that had run off earlier. After a minute had passed, Amy finally broke  
the silence.

"So, how are we going to get changed back to normal?" Amy asked. "Sonic, you've got to think of something!"

"I can't, Amy," I told her. "I don't know how. This is different from collecting the Chaos Emeralds or trying to stop an evil or overconfident dictator from ruling the planet."

Just then, I saw Knuckles up ahead. He was sitting on the grass-covered, moonlit ground with his head turned away from us. He must have heard us though because he turned to look in our direction when we were a couple of yards away from him. As soon as he saw us, he used his right hand to support his body while he stood up.

"Knuckles," I said to him after I stopped a couple of feet from the red echidna. "Where is Typhoon?"

"He went in that direction," he answered pointing in the direction he was looking in before we showed up.

"Okay, that does it!" Shadow said with anger in his tone. "When we find that echidna, he is so dead!"

"Hold it, Shadow," Knuckles said with his hands out in front of the jet black hedgehog. "I don't think Typhoon is really a bad guy."

"Knuckles, what do you mean?" I asked.

"Sonic, after Typhoon ran off further into the woods, I saw a hooded figure chase after him. We need to help him."

That was probably the first time that Knuckles actually wanted me to help someone we didn't even know! I was a little skeptical about it, but the red echidna did have a point. If Typhoon ran away from that hooded figure, he must not have liked him.

"Okay," I said after thinking about the whole thing for a moment. "Let's go find Typhoon."

We dashed off into the direction Knuckles had pointed towards earlier, keeping our eyes open for the charcoal gray echidna. A few minutes had passed before we spotted two figures in the woods. One of them was Typhoon and the other one was wearing a black hooded cloak. The strange new figure was putting his mitten-covered hand up to Typhoon's face and he started chanting in some old language. The dark gray echidna was just standing there staring at the chanting figure in front of him, with his hands to his sides. When he had finished, the figure put his hand down and just let Typhoon continue to stare at him like he was in some sort of trance.

"You have hidden from me long enough, Typhoon," the hooded figure said to the dark gray echidna. "After nearly forty years, I finally found you. I let you keep your free will and you still got away from me. But now, I'm going to make sure that you never disobey or escape from your master ever again!"

Master? Did he mean the one that Typhoon had told us about in his story? The one that had turned him into a vampire and was responsible for what had happened to Amy, Knuckles, and Rouge? That did it! I was going to get that master of Typhoon's to reverse the spell on him even if I had to fight him!

"Hey, you in the hood!" I shouted out to him while pointing my finger at him. "Who are you and what are you doing with Typhoon?"

The cloaked figure turned to us and removed his hood, allowing us to see his form better. He was an echidna just like Knuckles and Typhoon were, but his fur was a shade of blue that was even darker than mine. His muzzle was beige just like the other echidnas' were, but his eyes were an eerie golden yellow color. The black cloak covered part of a golden necklace worn around his neck that had a jet black stone with a circular golden base attached to it underneath. His mittens were just like the ones the other male echidnas wore except each one had a golden wristband around it that looked similar to the chain of his necklace. The socks that his shoes mostly covered were the same dark violet as a cloudless night sky. Each one of his black shoes had a stripe in the middle that matched his socks. The stripes went across his shoes the same way the straps on my red ones did. His shoes were each secured to his feet by a golden band that matched the ones on his wrist.

"How dare you talk to me that way, mere mortal!" the figure said to me angrily. "I am the great and powerful sorcerer, Eclipse! And if you want to live to see tomorrow, you will watch your tongue while addressing me!"

"Eclipse?" I said his name out loud in shock.

"You mean that guy is Eclipse?" Knuckles asked.

"Isn't he supposed to be dead?" Tails said with fear in his tone.

"Typhoon never said that he died," Knuckles replied. "And he _was_ able to make him immortal. Maybe he's made himself immortal too."

"I don't care if he's a freaking zombie," Shadow said. "Its time to put an end to this."

"Shadow's right," I said. "We're going to finish this thing tonight."

I turned my attention back to Eclipse and pointed my finger at him again.

"Okay, Eclipse! We've had enough of this vampire crap of yours! Change our friends back to the way they were, right now!"

"Or you're going to be in big trouble, Mister 'great and powerful sorcerer!' " Shadow added.

I expected Eclipse to lose his temper after Shadow and I threatened him. Instead, he just burst out laughing, like what we had just told him was nothing but a joke! After a moment, he stopped and then looked at us. As soon as he did, he wouldn't take his eyes off of us. I couldn't figure out why. He wasn't glaring at us or anything. What was he looking at? After a minute had passed, the cloaked echidna finally spoke.

"What a pretty young maiden," he said with a sinister smile on his face. "She is perfect."

Eclipse lifted his right mitten-covered hand ; the hand was turned so his palm was out. Then, he moved it back in a "come here" gesture. All of a sudden, Tikal cried out in surprise as she was being pulled towards the two echidnas, like a big hand just came and grabbed her. The mysterious force that snatched her had her thrown right in front of Eclipse's creepy smiling face.

"Don't take your eyes off mine, my dear," he said to the trembling peach-colored echidna standing right in front of him.

Tikal didn't move. After a moment, she stopped trembling and she just stood there. What had just happened? What did he do to her?

"Come," Eclipse said to the two standing echidnas near him. "We must begin the preparations."

_Preparations?_ I thought. _What preparations?_

The dark blue echidna lifted his hand and put it out like he was touching something. Just then, a strange black portal appeared in front of him. He stepped out of the way in order to let somebody else go in before he did. Tikal was the first one to approach the portal and was making an attempt to enter it. Knuckles started to run over to her with Shadow and me following close behind.

"You let her go, you jerk!" The red echidna called out to the cloaked one as we got closer to them.

"Typhoon, take care of them!" Eclipse commanded.

The dark gray echidna's eyes turned from his usual cobalt blue to the eerie green color of his energy blasts and I could see the bright glow that was emanating from the palm of his right hand. Then, he shot Knuckles with the energy he had in his hand before. The red echidna cried out in pain as the blast sent him flying into me and Shadow ; knocking the three of us to the ground.

Amy called out to me as she, Rouge, and Tails ran over to us. Just as they did, Tikal had entered the dark portal, with Eclipse and Typhoon following after her. We watched in shock as the three echidnas had vanished into the portal like ghosts that had just went through a wall.

"What do we do now?" Tails asked.

"What we should do," I replied. "Go in after them."

I didn't want to admit that I was a little scared, but I knew I had to go in there. There was something very weird about Eclipse and I was going to find out what it was. I stood up on my legs, ran towards the strange portal, and went straight into the eerie darkness.

(Knuckles)

Sonic had just run off into the weird, dark portal. I'm not sure if doing that was wise, but even if it wasn't, we knew that he was right. Eclipse had done something to Tikal. There was no way she would have gone willingly into that portal. And what did Eclipse mean by "preparations?" What did he want  
Tikal for?

I knew I wasn't going to get those answers by standing around in the woods. I got up and went into the portal after Sonic. When I made it through, I saw Sonic standing a few feet from me. Just then, we both heard a noise from behind us and turned around just in time to see the forms of Shadow, Amy, Rouge, and Tails appear from the portal entrance. As soon as they made it out, the portal began to disappear. All of us watched it vanish before our eyes like it never existed.

"The portal is gone!" Amy cried out. "How are we going to get back?"

"We'll worry about that later, Amy," I said. "Right now I want to find Tikal and let Eclipse have it!"

"Don't be so selfish, Knuckles," Shadow said to me while clenching his right fist. "I want a piece of that 'great and powerful' echidna too."

"Where are we?" Tails asked.

We surveyed our surroundings and noticed that the passageways and walls were made out of stone like in medieval times. We were in an ancient building of some kind. And even though I knew I had never been there before in my entire life, there was something strangely familiar about it. Before I had a chance to wonder about that, we heard a sound in the distance. It sounded like footsteps.

"What's that noise?" Rouge asked.

"Sounds like we just found Eclipse," Sonic said.

The blue hedgehog led the way through the ancient passageways, following the sound of footsteps on the stone-covered floor to our objective. After about a minute, we had reached a staircase that spiraled down to another room. When we heard Eclipse's voice down below us, we knew we were close. We cautiously went down the stone steps, closer to the voice of the hooded echidna.

When we were close enough to look at the room, we stood where we were ; staring in awe at the sight before us. The room was lit with torches on the walls that had ancient deities painted on them. In the middle of the room was a jet black stone altar with crimson red markings on the floor underneath it. There were four black, goblet-shaped lanterns that matched the altar they surrounded.

I couldn't believe my eyes! We were in the temple Typhoon had talked about in his story! It was the same temple were Eclipse had made him into a vampire! What happened afterwards was even more shocking. Tikal and Typhoon walked over to the altar where the dark gray echidna then put her in place on it. As I watched, a horrible thought had entered my mind.

I was in the temple and Eclipse was holding his black spell book ; chanting in an ancient language. But instead of Tikal being on the altar, I saw that echidna girl, Summer. I tried to reach her, but I was chained up. My hands were behind my back and my feet were shackled to the wall.

"Master!" I cried out to the chanting echidna, in Typhoon's voice. "Don't do this!"

He refused to listen and just kept on with his spell casting. I saw a grayish-blue portal appear above the girl. Out of it, I saw a hand come out of it and grab her. Tears began to fill my eyes as I called her name. And then, it all ended and I was back in the temple with Sonic and the others.

I just stood there, terrified from the images I saw. That wasn't a random thought I had. It was another one of Typhoon's memories. A very horrifying one I might add! And what was even more horrifying was at that moment when I realized it was a harbinger of what Eclipse was planning to do with Tikal. He was going to kill her!

Sonic had another long narration.  
End of Chapter Twelve.


	13. Inside the Temple

Two new reviews and a few story alerts. I'm sorry I have taken a while to update this story (again). This must have been the hardest chapter for me to write.

All of us stood there watching Tikal laying on the black altar in the middle of the room. Typhoon was standing on the right side of her ; just a few inches away from the red markings on the floor. Eclipse had just taken one of the lit torches that were hanging from the wall and was now walking over to the four jet black, goblet-shaped lanterns surrounding the matching altar that the peach echidna was on. Then, he used the torch to ignite the vessels clockwise. Flames roared within the lanterns, giving more brightness to the room.

Eclipse walked over to a jet black pedestal and took a black book that was on top of it. Then, he walked back over to the altar as he thumbed through the pages, looking for a certain one. He eventually stopped walking when he was a few inches away from the strange red markings that surrounded the black altar on the floor. As I stood there watching, Knuckles started muttering under his breath. I turned my head towards the red echidna that was behind me on my right.

"Knuckles," I said to him quietly so the echidnas in the room couldn't hear me. "What's wrong?"

"Sonic, Eclipse is going to kill Tikal" he replied.

"What?" I wanted to say it out loud. "How do you know that?"

"Because I saw it before my own eyes."

"What do you mean?" I asked not knowing what he was talking about.

"Ever since Typhoon bit me, I've been getting strange dreams. Every single one I had matched a part of his story. He somehow managed to transfer some of his memories to my brain and I just saw one of them. Summer was on the altar just like Tikal is right now and Eclipse had cast a spell to make a portal appear. A hand came out of it and grabbed her. That must be what had happened to her."

That's why Typhoon was so reluctant to tell us what had happened to Summer. He did say that he cared about her. So, it didn't really surprise me that losing her would have been devastating to him.

"So, Eclipse is the one that did something to Summer?" Rouge asked.

"Yes, and he's planning to do the same thing with Tikal," Knuckles said.

I knew there was something strange about Eclipse! He was going too far! Trying to kill Tikal? She was one of the few people that didn't even deserve it. I clenched my right fist ; anger rising inside of me like magma inside of a volcano.

"Not if I can help it," I said.

I sped down the stairs and into the room where the three echidnas were with Tails, Knuckles, and the others following close behind me. When I was close enough, I screeched my feet to a halt. Everybody else behind me did the same and they piled behind me like a crowd of people following their leader.

"It's over Eclipse!" I told the hooded echidna that was standing a few feet away from me. "Your weird rituals and vampire spells end tonight!"

"On the contrary, hedgehog," he said to me placing the black book he was holding on the altar. "My power is never going to end and I think it's time that you and your friends were finally taken care of."

Eclipse took hold of the jet black stone attached to his necklace with his left hand. Then, he waved his right hand away from his chest a few inches over the stone. At first, it seemed like nothing was happening. But then, all the vampires in the room started straining like they were struggling to keep control of themselves. When they finally stopped, they stood up and just stared at Tails, Shadow, and I the same way Tikal looked at Eclipse after he put a spell on her.

"Sonic," Tails said to me, trembling. "Why are Knuckles, Amy, and Rouge looking at us that way?"

"I don't know Tails," I answered. "But, I'm betting Eclipse has something to do with it."

"All of you, take care of these intruders!" Eclipse ordered the vampires standing still in the room. "I have some business to attend to."

All the vampires turned their attention to Tails, Shadow, and I, with scorn in their dark, lifeless eyes. They flashed their teeth at the three of us. Then, they charged at us using that supernatural speed of theirs. We dashed around the room with the vampires in hot pursuit.

Knuckles was hot on my trail. With that new speed of his, it was hard for me to lose him. As the red echidna chased me around the room, I heard Tails cry out. I looked up above me to see him using his namesake to help him fly across the ceiling, trying to keep away from Rouge. The white bat was now flying so fast that my twin-tailed buddy only had a moment to rest before he had to move again. I could tell that he was getting exhausted.

"Shadow, I could really use your help right now!" I called out to the red-streaked hedgehog.

"I've got troubles of my own!" he shouted back to me. Shadow darted out of the way just in time to dodge one of Typhoon's spiked fists and Amy's Piko Piko hammer. The black hedgehog had it the worst because he had _two_ vampires after him instead of just one like Tails and I did.

"Why don't you just use Chaos Control?" I shouted out to him.

"I tried! For some reason, I can't use it in here!"

When I looked at the altar in the middle of the room, I screeched my feet to a halt. Eclipse was standing a few inches away from the crimson markings on the floor around the jet black altar and was thumbing through the pages of the black book again.

Just before I could see him find the page he was looking for, Knuckles came up from behind me and punched me in the jaw with the spiked fist on his right hand. I cried out in surprise as I was knocked down to the cold stone floor on my backside. When I began to stand up, I looked again at the black altar. Eclipse had found the page he was looking for and was now chanting in some language that I wasn't familiar with.

_Oh no!_ I thought. _He's going to kill Tikal! I've got to stop him!_

_"_I hate to do this again to you, Knuckles," I said to the red echidna that was standing over me and was possibly about to kill me. "But you leave me  
no choice."

I stood up on my legs and ran around Knuckles, creating another whirlwind. The red echidna was sucked into the vortex and then sent flying into the air ; giving me time to stop Eclipse. When I looked back at the middle of the room, I noticed that the flames in the goblet-shaped lanterns were as black as the four vessels they were burning inside of.

Using all my speed, I jumped up in the air, and used my homing attack to charge at the hooded echidna. Eclipse cried out in surprise as I knocked him to the ground on his back ; causing him to lose the spell book he was holding in his left hand. After I was standing on my feet again, I leaned over and picked up the black book a few inches from me.

When Eclipse was making an attempt to get up from the ground, I saw Knuckles and the other vampires straining like they were before. After a moment, they all stopped. Knuckles was a few inches away from me when he finally spoke to me.

"Sonic, what happened?"

I was surprised when I heard that. Did he mean that he didn't remember attacking me earlier? I turned my attention back to Eclipse. When I looked back at him, I couldn't believe what I had just seen. The jet black stone attached to his golden necklace had a huge crack in it. It was similar to the windshield of a car after being hit with a huge rock.

As I looked at the stone, I remembered Eclipse using it before Knuckles and the other vampires began to attack us. Then, it hit me like lightning! The stone was how Eclipse was able to control them! When I cracked it using my homing attack, he lost his power over them.

"Give me back my book, hedgehog!"

Eclipse was walking dangerously slow towards me. His golden eyes full of anger were fixed on me and his mouth was in the form of a sneer. From the tone of his voice, I could tell that he had lost his patience with me. I looked at the black book I was holding in my hand. Then, I turned back towards one of the four goblet-shaped lanterns that surrounded the altar in the middle of the room. The strange black fire that was burning inside the lantern looked very creepy. A spell turned the fire's colors from the usual orange and yellow to an eerie black. The book was obviously too dangerous to keep, especially when they were in the hands of an evil sorcerer. When I realized that, I knew what I had to do.

(Knuckles)

I couldn't remember anything that happened before I spoke to Sonic. One minute, I was struggling to keep control of my body. And the next, I was standing just a few feet away from the blue hedgehog, still trying to figure out what had happened.

"Give me my book!" After hearing that voice, I turned towards Eclipse who was nearly standing inches away from Sonic.

"Okay, here you go," the blue hedgehog said to him. Before he could hand the book back over to the hooded echidna however, Sonic tossed it over his shoulder and into the black fire-filled lantern behind him. Eclipse cried out, "NO!" as the spell book was consumed by the black flames.

"Oops," Sonic said. He gave the hooded echidna a cheesy grin and had his arms out like he was embarrassed about what he had just done. I wasn't fooled for one second. I knew that Sonic had done that on purpose.

When I looked back at Tikal on the black altar in the middle of the room, I could see that she had awakened from the trance she was in because she was trembling like she had been turned into gelatin. A few feet above her, I saw a grayish-blue portal. The size of it made it look like it was big enough to swallow her whole. Out of it, a hand with long fingernails appeared. The nails were so long that they might have resembled claws. The peach echidna continued to tremble as the long-nailed hand began to descend from the portal in order to grab her.

It didn't take me long to recognize the hand and the portal it was coming out of. They were the same ones from the vision of the temple I had earlier that night. The hand had taken Summer and now it was going to do the same to Tikal. I dashed towards the black altar where the peach echidna was laying on and scooped her up in my arms. Then, I used my supernatural speed to rush the both of us away from the hand that was just about to snatch her and pull her into the portal. Her sapphire blue eyes were wide open with fear as she looked at me.

"Knuckles?" Tikal said to me in an uncertain voice.

I didn't say anything. At that very moment, I was terrified! Just a few seconds before, I was watching a hand reach down and try to grab her. If it had gotten hold of her, she would have been gone forever. The both of us continued to look at each other like we were in a trance as I held her in my arms.

"You will pay for that, you fool!" When I looked over my shoulder and saw Eclipse, I could tell that he was enraged by what I had just done.

Eclipse had really done it! I was so furious that Typhoon blasting me with that green energy of his earlier that night seemed more like he had just pulled one of my dreadlock spines! I had nearly lost Tikal because of Eclipse and I was going to let him have it! I set Tikal down on the stone floor and then turned back towards the hooded echidna.

As soon as I did, I saw Typhoon rushing behind Eclipse. He looked like he was heading straight to the altar Tikal was laying on earlier. He got up on the altar and then jumped into the portal and vanished. I called out his name like I thought that it would bring him back, but there was no doubt in my mind that he was gone. After all the things I did to him and the way I acted, I couldn't helping feeling guilty. Even though he jumped into the portal willingly, I felt like it was my fault that he did it.

When I turned my attention back to Eclipse, I remembered how angry I was at him. Clenching my fists, I charged at him with my vampiric speed and pinned him to the wall. My rage consumed me as I fixed my eyes on the hooded echidna and bared my teeth at him.

"You jerk!" I said to his face with an angry tone. "You're responsible for turning me and some of my friends into vampires! You tried to kill Tikal! I'm going to make you wish that you never even _touched_ that spell book!"

After I said that, I took my right fist and used it to punch Eclipse in the chest. As soon as I did, I heard a cracking noise where I had sent the blow. When I looked at the spot where I hit the sorcerer, I saw some strange black energy emerging from the golden circular base where the jet black stone was supposed to be. Then, all the flames in the goblet-shaped lanterns and the torches on the wall went out like gusts of wind came and blew them all out at the same time.

The crimson markings on the floor surrounding the altar began to glow, filling the room with an eerie red brightness. The pictures of the deities painted on the walls began to glow as well, adding to the red luminance of the floor markings. When I looked at the paintings of the deities on the wall behind me, I saw that they now had the wings of dragons. Their faces were also sinister looking, like they were evil.

"You fool!" Eclipse said to me. "Do you realize what you have done?"

As soon as he said that, a black vortex started to form from the markings on the floor. It continued to grow until it had reached the ceiling of the temple room. The sound it made was like a mix between a howling wind and the roaring of a fierce beast.

"Eclipse!" a sinister voice coming from the black whirlwind said. "Your time has come!"

After the voice said that, a hand similar to the one from the portal earlier had come out of the swirling vortex and grabbed the hooded echidna. Then, it pulled him back into the whirlwind with it. Even with the howling wind drowning out nearly every sound in the room, I could hear Eclipse screaming like he was in pain.

Suddenly, the suction from the vortex became so great that the torches from the wall were being sucked into it. I ran over to the room entrance where Tikal and the others were standing. When I looked at the jet black goblet-shaped lanterns in the room, they were being sucked into the vortex as well.

"Sonic, I think we better leave," I told the blue hedgehog.

"Good idea," he replied.

The seven of us dashed out of the glowing red temple room, up the spiraling, stone stairs, and back into the ancient passageways. Even after leaving the room, I could still hear the howling wind and Eclipse's horrifying screams from inside the vortex. And then all of a sudden, there was nothing but silence.

End of Chapter Thirteen.


	14. End of the Nightmare

One new review and two story alerts.

It was very strange for the temple to suddenly become quiet. A few minutes ago, there were the terrifying sounds of Eclipse screaming in that swirling, black vortex. And then, there was nothing. What had happened to Eclipse and that strange whirlwind that he was pulled into?

"Sonic," Amy said finally breaking the silence. "Why did it get so quiet?"

"What do you think happened to Eclipse?" Tails asked.

"I'm pretty sure that jerk got what he deserved," Shadow said.

"I think I'd have to agree with you on that, Shadow," I told the jet black hedgehog. "At least the rest of us made it out okay."

"Most of us," Knuckles said kind of sadly while lowering his head. "Typhoon didn't make it. He jumped into that portal and disappeared."

"I'm sorry, Knuckles," I told the red echidna while placing my right hand on his left shoulder. "I know how badly you wanted to help him."

Just then, everything around us started to shake. The shaking was intense, but it wasn't powerful enough to make us lose our footing.

"What's going on?" Rouge asked before a piece of the ceiling fell down between us.

"The temple's caving in," Tails answered.

"What? No way!" I couldn't hide the shock in my voice as I took my hand off of Knuckles's shoulder. The temple was falling down and we needed to find a way out of it. Otherwise, we would be buried underneath its remains.

"What are we going to do?" Tikal asked.

"Well, I can't use Chaos Control in here," Shadow said. "I already tried."

"Sonic, how are we going to get out of here?" Amy asked me while grabbing my left arm.

"I don't know, Amy," I told her.

Knuckles couldn't dig us out because the floor was made of stone. And with the ceiling falling, we were likely to be crushed trying to fly out through an opening in the roof. Amy released her grip on me, placed her glove-covered hands on my shoulders, and let her head rest on my chest as she began to cry. I put my arms around her to try to comfort her as I closed my eyes. I didn't want to admit it, but I was scared. The temple was collapsing and there was no way out. There were no windows or doors that lead outside. The portal we used to get in was our only exit and it had vanished. And with Eclipse gone, there was no way for there to be another one.

"I'm afraid were goners this time," I said.

"You never seemed like the kind of person to give up so easily to me, hedgehog."

My eyes snapped wide open when I heard that familiar voice. All of us turned our heads to the direction it came from and saw Typhoon. The dark gray echidna was standing in the middle of the stone hallway and he appeared to be holding someone in his arms. It looked like a girl echidna, but she was transparent like a ghost.

"You picked a fine time to join us, echidna," Shadow said to the echidna standing in the middle of the hallway to the temple room. "We're just about to be buried alive in this ancient deathtrap."

"What are you talking about?" Typhoon asked.

"The portal was the only exit and it disappeared," I explained to the dark gray echidna. "There is no way out."

"There is one way."

"What?" Knuckles said. "Typhoon, what are you talking about?"

"There is another way out of here. Follow me and I'll show you."

The dark gray echidna turned in the opposite direction and sped down the ancient passageways with the rest of us following in hot pursuit. The stone walls and ceiling kept crumbling around us as we dashed through the hallways, trying to make it through them alive.

Finally, Typhoon turned left and ran through an entrance that was two doors past the temple room. The rest of us went in after him, shortly before the ceiling fell in and blocked the passageways we were racing through earlier. The room we were in was shaped like the one where Eclipse had tried to kill Tikal. However, it had no markings or torches on the walls and it was more the size of a bedroom than a gym.

In the center of the room was a black statue of a serpent's head that was half the size of the goblet-shaped lanterns. The serpent had eyes that looked like they were made of rubies and there was a dark blue, oval-shaped gem that was four times the size of a Chaos Emerald in its mouth. A blue brightness emitted from the gem was the only thing that made the room visible. The way the statue was designed it looked like it was trying to eat the gem and let the room be covered in darkness. When I looked around the room, I realized that there weren't any windows or doorways. There was no way out!

"You led us to a dead end!" I said to Typhoon.

"Emphasis on dead," Shadow added with his arms crossed.

Typhoon didn't say a word nor did he turn back towards us. It's like he didn't even hear us. He went over to the statue in the middle of the room and shifted the girl he was carrying to his left shoulder. Then, he placed his right hand on the dark blue gem inside the mouth.

_What is he doing?_ I thought. _Has he lost it?_

A few seconds had passed and nothing happened. Then, the serpent's ruby eyes began to glow like the markings in the temple room. After they did, a portal just like the one we went through to get to the ancient passageways appeared a few inches away from Typhoon.

"How did you do that?" Amy asked the dark gray echidna. "Do you have magic powers too?"

"No," he replied. "Because of the spell my master casted on me, I gained dark powers which were the same ones that he used. Now unless you guys want to stay here and become ancient relics, I suggest you enter the portal."

"He's right," I told Amy. "We need to get out of here."

I took hold of the pink hedgehog's right hand and sped us both into the black portal. After we made it through, I noticed that something was different about the area we were at. It wasn't until I turned around and saw the altar with the Master Emerald on top of it did I realize where we were. We were on the surface of Angel Island. The others came out of the portal just seconds before it vanished like the one that led us to the temple did.

"Those portals never last long," I said as I let go of Amy's hand.

"Well, at least we're not trapped in a temple that's falling down on us anymore," Knuckles said.

"That's true," I said to the red echidna. "Knuckles, what are we doing on Angel Island?"

Knuckles surveyed our surroundings to make sure that I wasn't joking. Then, he said, "Typhoon brought us here. Probably because it's the place where I found him."

Just then, I saw light beginning to appear on the grass at our feet. It was like someone was shining a huge spotlight on us. I turned around and saw the sun began to peak its rays across the ocean.

"Sonic! The sun's rising!" Tails exclaimed.

I began to turn back towards Amy ; ready to run full speed to take her to the safety of the nearest shady area. When I turned around, I saw that she, Knuckles, Rouge, and Typhoon were ascending up into the air. As soon as they were floating as high as the tops of the palm trees in the jungle were, each of their bodies became engulfed in white light. The rest of us had to cover our eyes as the vampires stood suspended in mid-air for about a minute ; their bodies seeming to resemble light bulbs. Then the blinding, white radiances from each of them had vanished before the vampires began to slowly float back down to the ground. As soon as they safely landed back on the surface, I ran over to Amy's side. I shook her shoulder the same way I did the night when Knuckles bit her.

"Amy, wake up," I said to her with a little nervousness in my voice. She made no movement. That light that was surrounding her body earlier was a little strange. What did it do to her? Did it kill her? Fear crept into my heart when I thought of that. I was afraid she might have been really gone. My eyes filled with tears as I lifted her to a sitting position and held her in my arms.

"Sonic, why are you crying?"

When I heard that voice, I looked down at the person in my arms that had spoken in it. Amy looked at me with light reflecting from inside her emerald green eyes. The endless darkness that was in them earlier was gone!

"Amy, let me see your teeth."

The pink hedgehog did what I told her and opened her mouth. Just as I suspected, her fangs weren't there anymore. Those two particular teeth looked just like all the others did. After she closed her mouth, the rays from the rising sun began to shine on her body. She didn't seem to be in any pain and smoke wasn't coming from her skin like it was on fire. That light didn't kill her. It cured her! I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled at Amy as I felt an immense feeling of joy come over me. She wasn't a vampire anymore!

(Knuckles)

I sat up on the ground trying to figure out what had just happened to me. It was just like when we were in the temple. The last thing I remember was exiting the black portal and then I was laying on the ground. As I made an attempt to stand up on my feet, I saw that the sunlight was on my skin. But it didn't seem to hurt me anymore. I used my tongue to feel my fangs, but they were gone!

"Knuckles?"

I turned my head to the left and saw Tikal standing over me. Using my hands to support my body, I stood up on my feet to meet with her face to face. The peach echidna seemed shocked after looking directly at me.

"Tikal, what is it?" I asked her.

"It's your eyes," she replied.

"Tikal, I know they now look dark and lifeless, but I still wouldn't hurt you."

"No, that's not what I mean. What I mean is I can see light in them again."

I didn't know what she was talking about until I remembered that my fangs were gone and the sunlight didn't hurt my skin anymore. After I thought of that, I ran at full speed to the altar and up the stone stairs where the Master Emerald was. The big green gem stood spinning like a giant, glowing, bright green disco ball as I looked into it. I couldn't believe what I just saw! It was my reflection! I haven't seen it since before Typhoon bit me! I wasn't a vampire anymore. How was that possible? I ran back down the emerald altar and back over to where Sonic and the others were standing.

"Sonic, how did this happen?" I asked the blue hedgehog.

"As soon as the sun started to come up, you and the other vampires began to float up in mid-air. Then, some white light started to shine from each of you. After a while, the light was gone and you floated back down to the ground. That light must have cured you."

I couldn't believe what Sonic had just told me! I don't remember floating in mid-air or seeing a white light shining from my body. That sounded weird! As I stood there still perplexed about what the blue hedgehog just told me, I saw Typhoon speed by us ; looking like a dark gray blur. He wasn't going to the edge of the island. He was going the other way.

"Where is Typhoon going?" Sonic asked.

"It doesn't look like he is going back to the mainland," I explained. "But, I think I know where he is heading off to."

End of Chapter Fourteen.


	15. Everything Back to Normal

You readers are probably wondering how the story is going to end. Well, you're about to find out because this is the last chapter.

Knuckles led us to the hidden palace under the surface of Angel Island. I haven't been down there since I fought him when he was tricked into thinking that I was going to steal the Master Emerald. When we got to the palace, he was looking at a spot where a boulder was next to a tunnel. I don't remember seeing either the boulder or the tunnel before. The boulder must've been blocking the tunnel's entrance earlier because it had been moved out of the way so anybody could enter it. The red echidna led the way through the dark tunnel and into a strange room.

Sure enough, there was Typhoon standing in front of a wall with stasis tubes. He was standing in front of one with a similarly-shaped steel door in front of it and holding that echidna girl on his left shoulder. The dark gray echidna reached into the pocket on the right side of his jacket and pulled out a key. Then, he fitted it into the lock on the door and turned it. The door made an electronic noise as it slowly lifted up allowing access to the stasis tube behind it. When he pulled the stasis tube out, I couldn't believe what was in there! It looked like the girl he was holding, but she looked more solid.

The girl had a muzzle that was the same light beige color as Tikal's, but the color of her fur was more like a light coral than a peach. She was wearing a white sleeveless top that went past her hips and a dark turquoise blue skirt that was just a couple of inches away from her ankles. On her feet were tan sandals with a plastic white flower each on the top of the straps that went across her toes. The gloves she wore on her hands were the same as Tikal's except around each one of her wrists was a bracelet of plastic flowers that matched the ones on her sandals. She had a rainbow-colored headband that went around her forehead with a white flower design in the middle. Around her neck was a necklace that went all the way to her belly with beads that matched her skirt.

Typhoon took the ghostly form of the girl on his shoulder and placed it into the solid version in the stasis tube. The transparent form vanished into the solid one the same way Tikal, Typhoon, and Eclipse did when they went into the portal. A few seconds passed before the coral-colored echidna girl in the stasis tube mumbled and slowly opened her sapphire blue eyes to look at the dark gray echidna happily gazing down at her. She looked shocked, like she didn't expect to see him. Then, she finally broke the silence, speaking in an unsure voice.

"Typhoon?"

The dark gray, smiling echidna nodded his head once as another way of saying "yes." The echidna girl sat up in the stasis tube and wrapped her arms around Typhoon. He responded by lifting her and wrapping his arms around her as he held her. I turned to Knuckles and asked him if the girl was Summer. Knuckles told me in the temple that he saw Summer in one of Typhoon's memories, so I assumed that he would know if the echidna girl was her.

"Yes," the red echidna replied.

So, that's why Typhoon jumped into the portal. Knuckles told me that a hand came out of the portal and grabbed Summer. Or at least it snatched her soul and pulled it back into the portal. Typhoon must've grabbed her body, fled to Angel Island, and placed her in the stasis tube. So when the portal reappeared, he went back for her soul so he could have her resurrected. After a moment of their embrace, the two echidnas pulled away and gazed into each other's eyes, like they were both in a trance.

"What happened to your eyes, Typhoon?" Summer asked the dark gray echidna. "There's no darkness in them anymore."

"I don't know what happened, Summer," he replied. "All I know is that I'm not a vampire anymore."

Summer turned her attention away from Typhoon and looked at the rest of us. When she did, the expression on her face went from a confused look to one of fear, like we were going to hurt her.

"Typhoon, who are they?" she asked pointing at us.

The dark gray echidna turned his head in our direction. Then, he turned back to her and answered, "They're friends of mine."

"So, Typhoon," I said to the charcoal echidna. "Now that you're not a vampire anymore, does that mean you can no longer use that strange green energy of yours?"

"What are you talking about, Sonic?" Typhoon said. "I've had that ability before the night my master put that spell on me."

"What about gliding?" Knuckles asked. "Tikal and I are the only ones that can do that."

"The same as my green energy. I've had it before I became a vampire."

"But how is that possible?" I asked him.

"I've been exposed to a huge gem with mystical powers."

"Like the Master Emerald or that blue gem you used to get us out of the temple?" Knuckles asked.

"Not quite. The gem I was exposed to was more of a power source brought down by my people's ancestors."

"Speaking of your people, Typhoon, how exactly did any echidnas survive?" I asked the dark gray echidna.

"Yeah, Knuckles and Tikal were the only echidnas on the planet until you and Summer showed up," Tails explained.

"They're probably the only ones left of their people," Typhoon answered. "The people that Summer and I are descended from have been living on the surface for over three-thousand years. And it's also possible that there could be other echidnas living somewhere else on the planet."

"But nobody's seen any other echidnas around," Tikal said.

"They could be living in places that are far from the city," Summer said. "My family lived in a small town."

"Our people preferred to live without humans or other groups," Typhoon explained. "Maybe you haven't seen any other echidnas because they won't let themselves be seen by others."

Typhoon was really a strange echidna! He had been around for nearly a thousand years, but he was a teenager like most of us. I know Tikal had been around for about three-thousand years before being sealed in the Master Emerald, but Typhoon was even more different without being a vampire. He was able to use that weird green energy and glide like Knuckles before Eclipse had cast that spell on him.

In lots of ways, Typhoon was like Shadow. They had both been around longer than Knuckles and I have, they had both been in stasis tubes for many years, they had our abilities, and they were even more powerful than we were. One problem that Shadow and I had was that we usually never got along. It was the same way with Knuckles. It usually didn't take long for the both of us to get into a fight. If Typhoon was planning to stay on Angel Island, I wonder how long it would take before Knuckles got in a fight with him?

(Knuckles)

I led the way out of the Hidden Palace and back towards the bright surface of Angel Island. I let out a joyful sigh as the sun shone on my fur. It felt so good to feel the warmth from the sun again.

"So, what are you guys going to do now?" Sonic asked the two echidnas that were in the stasis tubes.

"I think I want to go home," Summer answered. "I want to see my parents again."

"Are you sure that they're even still alive?" Amy asked.

"I'm pretty sure they are, Amy," Typhoon said to the pink hedgehog. "It's only been about forty years since we were in the stasis tubes."

"So what are _you_ going to do Typhoon?" I asked the dark gray echidna.

"What do you mean? I'm going with Summer."

I was a little surprised by what he just told me.

"You're leaving?" I asked him. "You're not going to stay here?"

"I'm staying with Summer, Knuckles. I love her and I think it would be best for her parents to meet me."

"Isn't she a little too young to be getting married?" Shadow asked.

"She won't be after a few more years," Typhoon said.

I felt a feeling of disappointment come over me the same way the guilt I had when I thought Sonic was dead did. The only other male echidna I knew was leaving. After all the things he had done to me, good and bad, I was now upset that he was leaving.

"I thought that you were going to stay on Angel Island," I said to Typhoon. "I was starting to think of you like a brother I never had and I was kind of looking forward to having you live on the island with me."

"Knuckles," the dark gray echidna said to me. "I stayed with you because you didn't know what had happened to you after I bit you. Now that the spell has been broken, you don't need me anymore."

"So, you're leaving for good?" I asked while slowly lowering my head.

"I wouldn't say that," Typhoon told me. "Who knows? I may come back someday."

"Hopefully not as a vampire again," Shadow said.

Typhoon scooped Summer up in his arms and took off into the sky. The coral echidna placed both her arms around the dark gray echidna that was holding her in his. When they were in mid-air, they floated for a moment to wave goodbye to the rest of us. We waved back and said our farewells to them before they turned away from us and continued to fly in the air. We watched them look like they were getting smaller until they became a tiny speck in the sky and then vanished from our sight.

"You know what," Sonic said. "I think we should be going too."

"Why do you think that Sonic?" Shadow asked.

"Well, for one thing, you've got to return the unused blood packets you stole from the hospital last night. Now that your girlfriend and everybody else is back to normal, you don't need them anymore."

Shadow gave Sonic an annoyed look after the blue hedgehog's statement.

"Rouge is _not_ my girlfriend! We're just partners!"

"Sure you are," Sonic said with sarcasm in his tone. "Why else would you be blushing?"

The red-streaked hedgehog became even more infuriated as he clenched his fists and bared his teeth at the smirking blue hedgehog with his  
arms crossed.

"I'm not blushing!" Shadow said in an angry tone. When he said that, his muzzle was a little red. Sonic was right. He was blushing. He just didn't want to admit it because he wasn't the kind of person with a noticeable soft spot.

"So, Shadow," Rouge said to the jet black hedgehog while taking hold of his hands with both of hers. "Are you sure we're just partners?"

When she said that, Shadow's eyes grew bigger and the color of his muzzle went from a light red to the color of my fur.

"Why don't we discuss it back at my place," the white bat said with a seductive tone as she gazed into his crimson eyes and slowly ran one of the fingers on her right hand up the hedgehog's white tuft of fur on his chest. Shadow's expression didn't change, but he did slowly lower his hands and let them hang by his sides as he continued to look at Rouge.

"So, what are you and Tails going to do when we get back to town, Sonic?" Amy asked the blue hedgehog.

"Amy, " he said. "I was kind of thinking...that maybe if you wanted...maybe we could go out later for lunch."

Sonic sounded kind of nervous when he spoke. I was starting to think that maybe he was kind of shy asking Amy out. The pink hedgehog didn't seem to care about his stuttering though. Her emerald green eyes lit up and a smile spread across her face after hearing the blue hedgehog's stammering offer.

"Oh Sonic," she said excitedly as she wrapped her arms around him. "I can't believe it! We're actually going out!"

"Amy, I meant going out for something like burgers, not a fancy expensive place where I have to wear a tie."

Sonic turned to Shadow and said, "Shadow, why don't you use Chaos Control to get us out of here?"

"No way!" the jet black hedgehog replied. "Not after the way you were messing with me earlier."

"Oh, come on. You're our only way off of the island. If you're that upset, we can duke it out later."

"No."

"Rouge, could you please get your boyfriend to Chaos Control us out of here?"

"Sonic!" Shadow clenched his fists again and the furious look on his face told us he was at the edge of losing his temper.

"Come on, Shadow," Rouge soothingly said to the red-streaked hedgehog. "Your Chaos Control is the only way out of here. Besides, we can have some time to ourselves after we get back to the city."

"Okay," the jet black hedgehog said reluctantly.

"All right, Shadow," Sonic said. "Go ahead and say the magic words."

Before he did say the "magic words", he lowered his head and said to Sonic in his ear, "I'm going to get you for this."

I waved goodbye to everybody as they disappeared in a flash of light and I was alone again. I went back to the altar and up the steps were the Master Emerald was. Then, I sat down to resume my job of guarding it. As I sat at the top of the stone altar, I was feeling so down that I had to use my right hand in order to hold my head up. Typhoon was gone and who knows if he was ever going to come back. If he had stayed, I wouldn't have had to feel lonely anymore. I let out a long depressed sigh as I sat there, guarding the Master Emerald.

"Knuckles?"

When I heard that familiar voice, I looked down at the stone steps where Tikal was standing, looking up at me with her hands behind her back.

"Tikal, what are you doing here?" I asked her. "Why didn't you go with Sonic and the others back to the mainland?"

"I was thinking that maybe you would want some help guarding the emerald."

My heart was filled with delight by her words! Before Typhoon had bitten me, Tikal was the only one I wanted to be around. And now she wanted to guard the Master Emerald with me.

"Sure," I said to her. "I could use a little company for a while."

The peach echidna walked up the stone steps of the emerald altar until she had reached the top where I was perched and sat next to me on my left. Then, she placed her right hand on my left one and let her head rest on my shoulder. Her actions startled me, but I didn't push her away. I let her hold my hand and rest on my shoulder as we sat on the top of the altar. The sun was shining brightly as a gentle breeze blew on my face and through my dreadlock spines. It was just like the day when all that weird stuff happened. Only this time I wasn't just thinking of Tikal, I was sitting next to her.

The End.  
This is the first fanfic that I actually finished! Yay! Feel free to review and let me know what you thought of it.


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